About Barbara Harper

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Laudable Linkage

Posted on October 7, 2023 by Barbara Harper

I’m a bit behind in my blog reading, but here are some of the thought-provoking posts found this week:

Crowned, HT to Challies. On being a grandparent: “This is miles apart from mothering. At first blush, you would not think so: filling sippy cups, opening snacks, picking up toys, readying baths, reading books, kissing those chunky cheeks, swinging, collecting rocks, frolicking, and singing.”

Your Faithfulness Affects Us All: A Plea to Empty Nesters to Continue to Pursue Their Marriages, HT to Challies. “The problems that are often swept under the rug while the kids are at home have a nasty way of coming back with a vengeance after the kids have left the home. The call to pursue your husband or wife is just as crucial three or five decades into marriage as it is in the first couple of decades of your covenant. Here are three ways to pursue faithfulness in marriage during your empty nest years.”

How to Get the Most Out of Your Pastor’s Preaching. “Do you ever find yourself: Waking up on Sunday morning and wishing you didn’t have to go to church? Having a hard time staying awake in church? Daydreaming during the message, or making a mental ‘to-do’ list while the pastor is preaching?”

Beauty, Goodness, and Truth. “Raechel and Amanda reflected on where in their lives they are seeing beauty, goodness, and truth, and challenged their listeners to consider that too. As I thought about that question, I was surprised by how much it encouraged me.”

3 Times You Should Disobey Authority, HT to Challies. “What are the limits to our moral obligation to submit when someone possesses an ostensibly legitimate authority over us, like a parent over a child? Certainly there are limits. Remember, no human authority is absolute. Authority is always relative to the assignment given by the Authority Giver.”

5 Things at the Heart of a Pastoral Visit, HT to Challies. “Pastoral visitation is a powerful means of spiritual encouragement and a tangible demonstration of the love of Christ to his people. . . . While I have written before about the benefits of visitation to the life and work of a Pastor, this post will seek to lay bare some of the basic principles of visitation which could be of help to those on the receiving end of it.”

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on October 6, 2023 by Barbara Harper

We’re a week into October already. Leaves have started changing and falling, but we haven’t seen full autumn color yet. We should in the next week or two! Meanwhile, I am rejoicing in cool mornings and evenings. Here are a few other reasons for rejoicing this week, and sharing with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story.

1. Being treated to dinner out with new friends. A couple at church invited us out to eat, and we enjoyed getting to know them better.

2. Care group meeting. The church we’ve been attending divides up into smaller care groups, each under an elder. We knew they had them but didn’t really know how they operated or where or with whom. But someone invited us to theirs, which meets every other week, usually in the elder’s home. It’s mainly a way to get to know each other in a smaller group setting, share prayer requests, etc. And have snacks. 🙂

3. A free (sort of) car wash. Jim took my car in to be serviced, get the oil changed, etc., and was offered a free car wash. I’m sure the price was incorporated into service fee, as it seemed rather high. But that’s all the more reason to take advantage of it.

4. A good movie. Last night we watched A Million Miles Away, about Jose Hernandez, who as a child worked with his migrant parents in various fields and grew up to fulfill his dream of becoming an astronaut.

5. Days at home. Though I enjoyed the social encounters over the weekend, I was very glad to spend most of the rest of the week at home with no out-of-the-ordinary outings. I’m not one who can go-go-go a lot.

I hope you’ve had a good week as well!

Review: Aftermath

Posted on October 5, 2023 by Barbara Harper

Aftermath, a suspense novel by Terri Blackstock

Terri Blackstock’s novel, Aftermath, opens with three young women at their favorite band’s concert. As the Libertarian political candidate the band was opening for came to the podium, an explosion rocked the stage area. Only one of the girls, Taylor, makes it out alive.

Just minutes after the explosion, policemen pull aside Dustin Webb’s car. They ask to search his trunk, and, having nothing to hide, he agrees. He’s shocked to see plastics for explosives in his trunk. He insists he doesn’t know how they got there and he didn’t put them there. The officers don’t believe him. They got an anonymous tip that he was the bomber, he worked with bombs in the Army, and his security company had a client which had explosives stolen from them. Everything adds up to Dustin being involved in the bombing.

Desperate, Dustin calls a friend from his past, Jamie Powell. She was the only person who believed in him when she lived next door. Perhaps she’ll believe in him now. They haven’t spoken since he went into the Army, but she’s a lawyer now, and he needs a good one.

Jamie drops everything to help Dustin. She has to fight for the right to represent him with the partners of her firm, who fear the repercussions of defending a suspected terrorist.

Meanwhile, Taylor’s fragile recovery from OCD is threatened by the tragedy she underwent. Despite seeing her psychiatrist, starting a new medicine, and being watched over by her sister, Taylor’s grief and guilt over not staying behind to help her friends escalates her symptoms. She feels the only way she can set things right is to find who did this.

I don’t often read suspense novels, but Terri is a master of them. This one had me on the edge of my seat, yet every character drew my sympathy. The faith element is clear and natural and not heavy-handed. If you like suspense—and even if you don’t—I think you would enjoy this book.

When You Can’t Set Everything Right

Posted on October 1, 2023 by Barbara Harper

Long before the Enneagram or the Meyers-Briggs personality classifications, I learned of the four spiritual temperaments: choleric, sanguine, phlegmatic, and melancholic. Everything I read indicated I was melancholic.

Melancholics aren’t sad, as the name sounds. But they tend to be quiet, introspective, and perfectionistic. That last trait can cause them a great deal of trouble. One, because they’ll never be perfect, this side of heaven. Two, because no one and nothing else will ever be, either.

One preacher crystallized the melancholic personality for me by saying they want everything to be right.

Well, you might say, what’s wrong with that? Don’t we all want things to be right?

One problem is with the concept of right: right according to whom?

Some things just seem common sense to me, and I wonder that others don’t see them that way. For instance, my local grocery store places the snack-sized fruit cups on a completely different row than the applesauce fruit cups. Why not put all the fruit cups and canned fruit on the same aisle? They also put the oatmeal on a different aisle than the boxed breakfast cereal. I’m ashamed to confess I have wasted a lot of frustration over things like that.

But sometimes someone else’s ideas of right make just as much sense to them as mine do to me, like ways to load the dishwasher, fold towels, or refill the toilet paper roll.

So those of us with a highly developed sense of “right” need to learn humility and forbearance. Others may have reasons for what they do that we don’t know. Who are we to insist everything be done our way? Stewing over little things that aren’t according to our preferences just raises our blood pressure and makes us grumpy.

But sometimes right really does matter significantly. You wouldn’t want your brain surgeon or accountant to be unconcerned whether they’re doing their procedures right.

My husband and I have battled frustration with products and services when someone’s carelessness resulted in great problems. No, they weren’t of brain surgery level importance, but they took hours on the phone to rectify.

We need perspective to know when something not right should be let go or insisted upon.

And we need grace and wisdom to convey the need for the level of rightness, not because it’s our own opinion, but because of the consequences if things aren’t done a certain way.

We also want to set things right when hard things happen to our loved ones. But we can’t. We can only try to comfort and offer aid. God has reasons for allowing hard things, and we have to let His purposes work out. In this case, He is doing what’s best, even if it’s hard to understand and experience.”Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Genesis 18:25, KJV). But “though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not afflict from his heart or grieve the children of men” (Lamentations 3:32-33).

Then there are major national and world-level scenarios that are far beyond our scope of influence. I rarely watch the news any more because it leaves me angry, frustrated, and/or sad. I listen to news headlines on the radio. And of course, you can’t scroll social media without picking up on what’s going on in the world.

We’re not alone in these concerns. The psalmists and prophets in the Bible often lamented and spoke out against the injustices and oppression in their time. They called on God to set things right.

The world at large won’t be fully “right” until Jesus comes again to rule and reign. Just one place where this is promised is Jeremiah 23:5: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.”

Does that mean we keep our heads down and just endure til He returns?

No. We can pray for His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven, as He taught in “the Lord’s prayer.”

We can speak up at appropriate times and ways. We can let our “light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).

We can tell others of His righteousness and how they can be right with Him and each other.

Like the old story about the child who was trying to save starfish on the beach by throwing them back in the water. A man told him, “You can’t possibly save them all.” “No, said the boy, “but I can save this one.”

We can’t set everything right. Only God can do that. But we can be instruments in His hand.

(I often link up with some of these bloggers.)

Laudable Linkage

Posted on September 29, 2023 by Barbara Harper

Here’s some of the thoughtful blogging found this week:

The Blessings That Come With Forgiveness, HT to Challies. “Birds fly. Fish swim. Christians forgive.’ My husband made this statement in a sermon on forgiveness a few weeks ago and it resonated with me. With all the authority and confidence that could only be rooted in Scripture, he proceeded to explain how forgiveness is as necessary to the Christian as breathing.”

When You Long to Know the “Why” Behind Your Sorrow. “It is the question that has spurred a world of exploration, invention, and innovation. Why? It is no surprise, then, that when we encounter troubles, when we experience tragedies, and when we find ourselves in situations that grieve us, we ask why.”

Are You Worried that Your Past Might Cancel Your Future? “The past you wish you could hide from the world may be the very thing God will use to qualify you for serving the world he loves.”

Places I Can’t Go, HT to Challies. “I am grateful that the kids grew up and were able to leave home and fly; they are capable and thriving, and I feel excitement and joy for them in each new adventure. But sometimes, when I say goodbye before a long separation, I have a fleeting but powerful yearning for them to be back under my roof.”

Closing the Gap Between Work and Worship. “Too often, we think of work and worship as entirely disconnected spheres of life. But I will argue that more than anything else, your work is your primary opportunity for worshipping God. And the more we can close the gap between work and worship in our minds, the more fulfilling we will find our work, and the better we will worship God through it.”

On Using Your 20s Well, HT to Challies. “It seems like my friend had bought into a common myth: the idea that once you’ve finished college, you should be a fully-formed adult who understands yourself fully, knows exactly what you’re going to do for the rest of your life, and walks confidently into that future with full assurance.”

Five Blessings of Marking Up Your Bible, HT to Knowable Word. I don’t do this as much as I used to, but when I do, it’s usually for the first reason listed. The list of what kinds of things you might want to mark is useful.

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on September 29, 2023 by Barbara Harper

Wow, it’s hard to believe we’re at the end of September already. It’s time once again to look intentionally for the good things we’ve been blessed with. Susanne hosts this weekly exercise in gratitude at Living to Tell the Story.

1. Boys’ camping trip. My husband, son Jason, and grandson Timothy went camping for a couple of days last week. Everything went well, and the weather was perfect. Timothy loved everything, from fishing, to sleeping in a tent, skipping rocks, swimming–even getting up early to see the sunrise, when he’s not usually a morning person. Jim took the RV and slept there, offering for the other guys to come in and sleep if they wanted to or if it got too chilly at night.

2. Visiting the camp site. Mittu and I drove up one afternoon to where they were camping. Jim made his wonderful grilled chicken teriyaki, and Mittu brought some cupcakes. An afternoon was about all I wanted of camping. 🙂 But it was fun to see Timothy having such a good time.

3. Connections. Lisa mentioned an online game called Connections. It has four rows of four words each, sixteen all together. You’re supposed to find four words that have something in common. I like that it’s simple and good brain exercise.

4. A dinner invitation. A couple at church invited us to meet them for dinner this weekend. I think that’s the first time we’ve gone out together with someone not family since before Covid. I’m looking forward to it!

5. Impromptu dinner. Mittu texted to ask if they could come over and make dinner last night since we all had plans over the weekend. We enjoyed sloppy joes, fries, zucchini, and chocolate chip cookies and looked over the camping pictures and videos.

How was your week?

September Reflections

Posted on September 28, 2023 by Barbara Harper

The long-awaited fall breezes are finally here! We still get warm in the afternoons, but I love evenings and mornings.

Besides the first day of autumn, September held several pleasant happenings. We enjoyed Jim’s grilled burgers with the family on Labor Day. Jason, Mittu, and Timothy had us over for Grandparent’s Day. We had a lovely meal, some cute cards in which Timothy told what he liked about us, and a couple of thoughtful gifts. Then Jesse, my youngest, turned 30, so we had fun celebrating him together.

I had mentioned earlier in the year that we were visiting churches. We’ve been at the same one for several weeks now and just finished their class for potential members. This church is a little busier than we’re used to. Of course, we don’t have to go to everything, and I’m somewhat limited due to physical issues. But we really like the preaching and are enjoying getting to know folks.

Jim changed his mind about retirement several times, but finally told his company he’ll retire at the end of the year. We’ve had many discussions about what he’ll do afterward. He likes to keep busy, so I’m sure he won’t occupy a rocking chair for long. It’s nice to have options.

Creating

I only made one card this month, for Jesse’s birthday. I did it on the computer, as I didn’t have any ideas for a “handmade” card for a 30th birthday. I found free clip art site with birthday candles in a set of five, so I copied and pasted it enough times to fill up the page.

Watching

One movie Jim and I enjoyed together was Little Boy, about an eight-year-old boy whose father goes off to WWII. Being told that “faith can move mountains,” he sets out to exert all the faith he can to bring his father home. I would not take my theology from the movie. But it was sweet in places, touching and heart-wrenching in others, and did some interesting things with cinematography.

Another was Walking with the Enemy, “based on” a true story about a young Jewish Hungarian man who takes the uniform from a dead German Nazi officer to impersonate him to rescue a friend being held prisoner. But he can’t leave others to die, so he impersonates the officer more often in more daring situations.

We also watched Hanna’s War, based on Hannah Szenes (sometimes written as Senesh). She was a Hungarian Jew who immigrated to Israel during WWII. She was recruited and trained as a paratrooper with the British Special Operations Executive to parachute into Yugoslavia and help rescue Hungarian Jews facing deportation. She was arrested in Hungary, jailed, tortured, and executed. Wikipedia says she is regarded as a national hero is Israel. Though we didn’t do this on purpose, it was helpful that we watched Walking With the Enemy previous to this and knew the situation with Germany’s takeover of Hungary.

Another “based on true events” film I watched by myself when Jim was away was Belle. Dido Elizabeth Belle, the biracial daughter of a Navy sea captain, was brought to his estate to be raised as his daughter and heir, even though by society’s standards she’s not permitted in certain gatherings. Her grandfather was the Lord Chief Justice who has to rule on a case involving slaves thrown overboard from a ship, whose owners then sought to be compensated by insurance. But the details of the film vary from history. You might know of Dido from a famous painting she and her cousin were the subjects of.

Another I watched myself was Dear Viola, where Kellie Martin plays Katie, a spinsterish accountant for a newspaper who submits a reply for the recently vacated “Dear Viola” advice column. Her editor likes it so well, he hires her to take on the column, but she wants to do so secretly. Soon she’s sparring with a male writer who laments his lack of social life since his wife died. The small town eagerly awaits what the next letter will say. But in such a small town, she figures out who the letter-writer is. This was a predictable but sweet romance. It’s clean except for Katie’s friend saying she had hoped Katie would stay overnight during her date.

I’ve not watched The Chosen. I’m wary of biblical fiction in books or films, because invariably the writers have to fill in with extra-biblical details. I think they can help visualize happenings in the Bible if we keep in mind that anything extra is the author’s speculation. For instance, some years ago I saw a film about the crucifixion (not The Passion of the Christ, but I don’t remember what it was). I was struck by the noise of the crowd and the realization of having to bear that along with everything else. The Bible says people taunted Jesus and jeered, but I tended to think of them doing that only when someone was quoted.

However, I usually abstain because I don’t want the non-biblical parts confused in my mind with the real parts, and I don’t want those actors in my mind as I read the Bible.

Recently Adam Blumer shared a video of how the director of The Chosen filmed the scene of Jesus waking on the water. I was intrigued, so I watched the episode containing that scene (Season 3, Episode 8, “Sustenance“). There were some, “Hmm, I wonder why the filmmakers did it that way or threw that in” moments. But that particular scene was very powerful, as was the reading of Psalm 77 at the end in a flashback of Asaph debuting before King David a psalm he wrote. Hearing the last stanza, especially, dealing with water and such verses as “Your way was through the sea, your path through the great waters; yet your footprints were unseen” (Psalm 77:19) just after seeing Jesus walk on the water was really something.

Reading

Since last time, I finished (titles link to my reviews):

Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry, audiobook. This was my third of Berry’s books and my favorite so far. An older woman reflects on her life in Kentucky.
A Fool and His Monet by Sandra Orchard was a fun whodunnit about stolen art, but had some poignant moments as well.
A Beautiful Disguise by Roseanna M. White, audiobook. Two Edwardian-era siblings whose father spent all their money on entertainment become a private investigation firm called The Imposters to support themselves and their dependents. Excellent!
Bleak Landing by Terrie Todd. An Irish girl is abused by her drunken father and bullied by classmates in her small town in Canada. She runs away as soon as possible. Coming back to claim her father’s property, no one recognizes her except her arch enemy. Very good.
Far Side of the Sea by Kate Breslin, audio and print. A British man who lost his hand and confidence on the front lines in WWI receives word that the French woman who helped him, who he thought dead, needs his help. He travels to France to find the woman’s sister sent the message but thinks her sister needs them. Excellent.
What She Left for Me by Tracie Peterson, audio and print. A pastor’s wife returns home from a mission trip to find her husband has left her for his secretary and cleaned out their accounts. Her only option is to go to her mother, with whom she has not had a good relationship. Very good.
Lament for a Father: The Journey to Understanding and Forgiveness by Marvin Olasky, nonfiction. Marvin’s father was closed off during his lifetime, so Marvin uses his investigative journalism skills to learn more about and come to terms with him. Very good.

I’m currently reading:

Be Exultant (Psalms 90-150): Praising God for His Mighty Works by Warren Wiersbe
Made for More: An Invitation to Live in God’s Image by Hannah Anderson
Elisabeth Elliot: A Life by Lucy S. R. Austen
How to Write a Sentence and How to Read One by Stanley Fish
The Phantom of the Organ, a Kindle Vella series by Susan Braun
Aftermath by Terri Blackstock, audiobook

I’m also going through Jen Wilkin’s Abide Bible study course on 1, 2, and 3 John with a ladies’ Bible study at church. It combines a workbook, group discussion, and video series.

Blogging

Besides the weekly Friday Fave Fives, Saturday Laudable Linkage, and book reviews, I’ve posted these since last time:

Writing

I haven’t done anything on the book project lately, I’m sorry to say. But I submitted a devotion for Christian Devotions which was accepted. It won’t appear until next August. And I am working on a piece about my mother-in-law for Remembering Our Parents.

Looking ahead

October is usually a pretty quiet month, a nice respite between “birthday season” and Thanksgiving and Christmas. Jim will be having surgery mid-month, which will keep him out of commission for a couple of weeks, at least.

We’ve had a family dress-up party at the end of October since Covid closed down Timothy’s trick-or-treat options a few years ago. I already have a costume in mind! 🙂

How was your September? What are you looking forward to in October?

(I often link up with some of these bloggers.)

Review: Lament for a Father

Posted on September 27, 2023 by Barbara Harper

Playing catch is a time-honored father-son interaction. Marvin Olasky’s only baseball-related encounter with his father resulted in a missed throw and his father walking away to go back inside.

Marvin uses this incident to typify his relationship with his father, who he says “never laughed and rarely spoke.” His father had been a Harvard graduate with high hopes, but now was frequently chided by his wife for having IQ but no DQ (“determination quotient”).

Marvin’s father, Eli Olasky, died in 1984. In a quest to understand his father better, Marvin used his investigative journalism skills to research Eli’s history. When Marvin, long-time editor of WORLD Magazine, wrote an article about his dysfunctional relationship with his father, letters poured in from readers with their own father difficulties. So Marvin shared his research into his father in Lament for a Father: The Journey to Understanding and Forgiveness.

Marvin interviewed family members, requested his father’s service records, and pieced together what he knew of history at the time and places his father lived. He traces Eli’s progression from a Jewish neighborhood and Hebrew school in addition to day school, Harvard attendance, WWII, where he assisted displaced Jews right after the war, when the Nazis hadn’t had time to dispose of all the bodies before fleeing, disappointment in graduate study opportunities, his series of short-lived teaching or administrative jobs.

His father was a quiet man, probably suffering from PTSD. He avoided arguments, walking away to go to his office and read. He avoided answering questions as well, brushing the questioner off by saying “It’s not important.”

Eli believed in ethnic and cultural but not religious Judaism. He thought the biblical miracles didn’t happen and the narratives were inspirational stories rather than history.

Marvin admits to not respecting his father in his teen and young adult years. He came to regret that later in life. His research made his father come alive in his mind and helped him understand him better. His change of heart toward his father is clear, but he doesn’t say much about processing forgiveness. Obviously, understanding his father better made forgiveness easier, which is a lesson for us all.

At the end of the book, at his publisher’s request, Marvin included his testimony of how he grew up Jewish, became an atheist and Communist, but was converted to Christianity.

Review: What She Left for Me

Posted on September 26, 2023 by Barbara Harper

In Tracie Peterson’s novel, What She Left for Me, Jana McGuire is a pastor’s wife who just returned home to Spokane from a three-week missions trip to Africa. Puzzled that no one was at the airport to meet her, she hails a cab and arrives at home to a note on the table. Her husband wrote that he left her for his church secretary and wanted a divorce. Jana saw that he also took anything of value in the house, including her jewelry. At the bank the next day, Jana discovers her savings and checking accounts have been cleaned out, leaving her only $10.

Jana’s husband, Rob, told the deacon board at church two weeks previously that he was resigning because Jana wanted out of the marriage. The church searched for an interim pastor and found one, who was moving into the parsonage that weekend. Therefore Jana needed to move out of her home immediately. When Jana explained her circumstances, the men were more sympathetic. But by that time, the interim pastor was still coming, and Jana still needed to leave.

With no home or money, and finding out she is pregnant, Jana has only one choice. She has to call her mother, with whom she was not close: the mother who kept her at arm’s length all her life, wished she was a boy, sent her to boarding schools, and said she wished she had aborted Jana.

Jana’s mother, Eleanor, had moved to Montana to stay with her octogenarian Aunt Taffy. Eleanor doesn’t want Jana to come, but Taffy is thrilled.

As expected, arguments erupt between Jana and her mother frequently while Taffy tries to be a peacemaker. Jana questions her mother about her upbringing in an effort to understand her better, but her mother shuts down any discussion of her past.

Yet Jana’s presence cause Eleanor’s painful memories to resurface, told to the reader in flashbacks. Eleanor had coped by shutting down all past memories and refusing to be vulnerable or close to anyone.

And Jana, in her pain and bitterness, is beginning to follow in her mother’s footsteps.

Tracie includes a note at the beginning of her book forewarning readers that the book will deal with adultery and child abuse. Tracie avoids graphic details, but she wanted to write the book because, at that time (2005), one in four girls were molested before the age of eighteen. She wanted to help readers understand what people in these circumstances go through and encourage reaching out and offering love and help.

I felt Tracie achieved her goal. But I felt she could have done so a little more efficiently. There’s a lot of repetition of certain points in the book. It’s understandable that in real life, people will bring up the same points while arguing, or people processing situations will cover the same ground repeatedly. But fiction is usually a little more streamlined and progresses more logically from point to point.

Plus, a plot device of someone walking in unheard at a vital point in a conversation was used more than once, when once was enough.

But overall, I felt the book did a good job showing what people in Eleanor’s and Jana’s circumstances go through and answering common questions and feelings, like “What did I do wrong to deserve this?” and “Why didn’t God stop this from happening?” Though the subject matter is difficult, it’s also far too common. I applaud Tracy for writing about it.

Is It More Important to Read the Bible Together or Alone?

Posted on September 24, 2023 by Barbara Harper

What’s more important: having regular personal time alone with the Lord or hearing the Bible read and taught in community at church?

You might respond, “We need both. Why pit them against each other?”

That’s my question. Why, indeed?

Nevertheless, I’ve seen a couple of recent articles positing that the church service is to be our main spiritual meal.

One author’s reasons for her premise was that in Scripture, God spoke to groups through a prophet or preacher, and the New Testament epistles were written to churches.

But God spoke to individuals as well. And many NT letters and books were written to individuals (Luke, Acts, Titus, Philemon, 1 and 2 Timothy).

I suspect this idea that we need to hear the Word gathered together more than we need to read it on our own arose for a couple of reasons. One is the drifting away of many from church and the desire to stress to believers the importance of meeting together.

Another is the almost universal guilt people feel about their time in the Bible. Every time this topic comes up, I hear disappointment or frustration or disillusionment. People feel guilty if they miss a day (or several days), if they fall asleep or get distracted while praying or reading the Bible, if they didn’t particularly get anything out of it or felt bored.

It’s true there’s nothing in the Bible that tells us to read it every day or prescribes exactly how a quiet time or devotions should be practiced.

But Psalm 1 tells us that the stable, fruitful person meditates on God’s law day and night. God specifically told Joshua to meditate on the book of the law day and night. We’re told throughout Scripture to remember what God said. We can’t meditate on (think about, turn over in our minds) what we have not heard or read.

The psalms in the Bible are songs which were sung by the children of Israel. Some of them have plural pronouns, but many have personal pronouns. That means even though the congregation is singing about the truths of the passage together, the passage was written by someone’s experience with the Lord alone. Psalm 119:148, the writer actually anticipates “the night watches, that I may meditate on Your word.”

Our time alone with God should feed into our time together, and our time in the Word together should edify our inner souls and equip us in our daily walk.

Time with other believers learning God’s Word is vital and wonderful. But we only meet together once or twice a week. The Bible is our spiritual food, and we need to eat more than that.

We don’t relate to God only as “one of the kids.” In a family with multiple children, each child relates to the family as a whole. But each child also relates to the father and mother as individuals.

We’re to meet together frequently (Hebrews 10:25), “stir one another up to love and good works” (Hebrews 10:24), learn from the incredible gifts God gave to the church in pastors and teachers (Ephesians 4:11-13), sing worshipful, Scripture based songs together (Colossians 3:16).

But just as children are born into a family individually, no matter who else might be there, we’re born again by personal repentance and faith in Christ as Lord and Savior. We get to know Him by spending time with Him, listening to Him, alone and with others. Though our brothers and sisters in Christ are great encouragements, sometimes we stand with God alone and encourage ourselves in God alone, like David did. We praise and meditate on Him alone in the middle of the night (Psalm 63:5-7). We’ll each give account of ourselves to God (Romans 14:11).

What about the disappointment we feel when our devotional time is less than stellar?

We need to remember the point of a devotional time is not to get through an assignment, to feel proud that we’ve completed our plan for the day, or to turn in a great performance. The point of a devotional time is to get to know God better.

When we get to know other people, we spend time with them, learn about them, listen to them, talk with them. Just like with others in our lives, those conversations will vary. Some interactions are long and deep, some are hurried and surface-level.

I like to think of it this way: every time in the Bible is not going to be like a Thanksgiving feast, where we’re filled to bursting with all our favorite things. But every meal nourishes us, even the tuna casseroles or peanut butter sandwiches and their spiritual equivalents.

God knows we’re only human. “As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 103:13-14).

And feeling sleepy, bored, or not with it on a given day happens in church as well as home alone with our Bibles.

When the Bible was being written, no one had a completed copy of it. And most people did not have their own copy of any part of it. Listening to the Bible being taught was the main way, often the only way, they were exposed to it. Even when the Bible was completed, it was a long time before individuals had their own.

But we do have the completed Bible. And most of us have several copies, as well as apps to read or listen to. William Tyndale, John Wycliffe, and others gave their lives to provide people with copies of the Scripture they could read in their own language.

If every word in the Bible is God-breathed, shouldn’t we spend time taking it in as much as we can?

A couple of older saints inspire me to read God’s Word for myself:

Above all theologies, and creeds, and catechisms, and books, and hymns, must the Word be meditated on, that we may grow in the knowledge of all its parts and in assimilation to its models. Our souls must be steeped in it; not in certain favorite parts of it, but the whole. We must know it, not [only] from the report of others but from our own experience and vision. . . Another cannot breathe the air for us, nor eat for us, nor drink for us.—Horatius Bonar from They Walked With God

You all have by you a large treasure of divine knowledge, in that you have the Bible in your hands; therefore be not contented in possessing but little of this treasure. God hath spoken much to you in the Scripture; labor to understand as much of what he saith as you can. God hath made you all reasonable creatures; therefore let not the noble faculty of reason or understanding lie neglected. Content not yourselves with having so much knowledge as is thrown in your way, and as you receive in some sense unavoidably by the frequent inculcation of divine truth in the preaching of the word, of which you are obliged to be hearers, or as you accidentally gain in conversation; but let it be very much your business to search for it, and that with the same diligence and labor with which men are wont to dig in mines of silver and gold.—Jonathan Edwards

Granted, the articles I mentioned earlier did not say we should only read and hear the Bible in church and never read it on our own. They encouraged private devotions as well, but elevated church reading and teaching above them. However, I would say reading and studying the Bible alone is not second fiddle to hearing it taught at church. Both are good and needed ways to get to know our God and His will better.