Ought To? Or Want To?

I’ve tried about as many Bible study methods as I have diets. Each one promised to be the answer; the first days were rewarding and I envisioned myself soaring to heights of spirituality…or wearing my shirt tucked in. But, inevitably, I would peter out, ultimately sinking back into the same old same old, though never giving up on the desire to know and love the scriptures, to have self-discipline, be a good steward of my body. At 52, with years of failures on my vitae, I still want to change. In particular, I want to somehow come to a place of loving to read and study the Bible, and yet for most of my Christian life, reading the Bible has remained in the category of “things I ought to do.”

Why has it been like that? Why don’t I “love” the scriptures the way others do, the way I feel that I would if only…..

The answer for me is three-fold. First, and probably most important, the endeavor is not unopposed. Pure and simple. My attempts to find God within the pages of this book are not carried out in a neutral zone. Oh, I like to think they are. I live as if my choices are just that, decisions among a vast array of options; some better than others, but most not really that important. But, in truth, the living out of my life, as hum-drum and predictable, or as chaotic and random as it might seem, is really not like that at all. Life on earth is life on a battlefield and to fail to realize that is to be asleep, if not putty in the enemy’s hands.

Secondly, I’m basically a rebel when it comes to discipline. The thought of having to do certain things a certain way, of planning, putting things on a Daytimer; all go against my bent. Discipline? I’m agin it. I’ve said it with pride, justifying it with, “No legalism here!” I confess it now with shame and in recent years have made my way back to incorporating disciplines, although I will probably always get distracted by the immediate and tend to desire the pleasurable over the best.

The third reason has to do with something I’m just now figuring out. It has to do with my approach to the scriptures and the methods I’ve tried. The failures may be due to reasons one and two; in fact, I’m sure they are in part. But I’m beginning to think that something else has been at work. Certainly my motives for reading the scripture vary, and I see nothing wrong with that. Sometimes I’m desperate for guidance, sometimes I want comfort, other times I really just want to find God.

Whatever my motivation, it seems that I’ve mostly approached the Bible from a practical, pragmatic mindset. That is: read something, then use it. Paste it onto a particular issue. Be comforted, encouraged, challenged, rebuked. I’ve seen the Bible as a handbook, a guide, a textbook, a hymnal. Something to use, to get something from.

But my heart wants something else. The Bible, until recently (and then still infrequently), has never managed to capture my imagination, and I think that’s possibly because of both the methods and my motivation. Underlining, circling, outlining, answering someone else’s questions – these all have their place, but somehow, for me, the dissecting of the scriptures was just that, picking apart something no longer alive. The "living" happened when I took it and applied it.

Several months ago I tried an experiment. I read a passage and then tried to rewrite the story from my imagination. I wrote about that blind man who the scribes badgered about who had healed him, whose parents turned coward, who had this breathtaking honesty and simplicity, “Whether he was a prophet I don’t know. All I know is that I was blind and now I see”, the one with the sharp tongue of a man who, long accustomed to the scorn of men, would dare to challenge his superiors with “You don’t want to be his disciples, too, do you?”

In my stories, I use my imagination. I make up things. I put words in people’s mouths, thoughts in their heads. I describe dusty streets, the sounds and smells as they might be perceived by a man blind from birth, who sat in the same place day after day, year upon year. And I’m finding that the scenes are sinking in, they’re becoming believable. I’m beginning to see and hear and taste and feel. Not enough, but definitely more than when I read the scriptures only looking for answers, for application.

With my writing, I’m simply trying to BE there, to see Jesus as someone there would have seen him, to be the woman at the well, Zaccheus in the tree, Peter’s wife wondering what’s happened to her man. To have my mind, heart, my imagination, engaged, enthralled with the story. I want depth. I want dimension. I want to believe that it all really and truly happened to sweaty, grimy, complaining, plotting, intelligent, blood and guts people, on a particular day, at a certain hour, with the sun blazing hot or the wind biting cold.

I'm not suggesting this as the newest, best approach or that anyone else take my lead. I know there are books published where people have done what I'm attempting and I've never wanted to read them, but I can say that for now, "reading my Bible" is inching away from "I ought to" and slowly towards "I want to."