how to read the bible like it's a chocolate thing.
The truth is, even though I grew up in church and hearing how important it was for Christians like myself to read the Bible, it always felt more like a chore and didn’t seem like a worthwhile thing to do if all I did it for was to check it off my to-do list. I knew that reading my Bible was truly beneficial, which is why I tried over and over to step into the habit of reading it more—usually on January 1, with a Bible-in-a-year plan in hand—but it was always short-lived.
In Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz, he writes about his friend Penny, who started reading through the gospels to learn more about who Jesus was. He quotes her saying,
"I always thought the Bible was more of a salad thing, you know, but it isn’t. It’s a chocolate thing.”
This line has stuck with me for the way I knew the Bible was a chocolate thing, but I couldn’t figure out how to experience it as a chocolate thing.
The shift for me happened shortly after I started attending my church and encountering people there, whether from the stage or face-to-face interactions, who showed me how the church really is the people and not the place. They didn’t walk around with a Bible tucked under their arms, reciting memory verses, or talking about their quiet times with Jesus and suggesting that everyone clear a window for it in their schedules. They didn’t post pretty, filtered photos of an open Bible, journal, and a coffee mug to their Instagrams with a cliche caption. And, on the flip side, they didn’t keep separate what they did on Sundays from the rest of the week––and not just because our church, at the time, only met on Tuesday nights.
Maybe it was because of something I lacked growing up, or maybe it was because I walked into this church the most broken and desperate I'd ever been, but I saw something in the people who were involved there that I hadn’t seen before. They spoke with authority, sharing testimonies and revelations and truth, drawn from scripture and applied to their real lives, in casual conversation. It seemed to overflow out of them—truth and love and kindness and generosity—instead of coming from them.
It wasn’t in anything they said, in particular, but more in how they spoke and lived and gave. It was the posture of their hearts more than their physical beings. Their love for Jesus was obvious and contagious. I wanted what they had so naturally and authentically and I knew, without having to ask, what it was. These people read their Bibles. They knew truth.
I took a page from Penny and started reading through the gospels. Unsurprisingly, I haven’t stopped reading the Bible since I started this time. I think it’s because I started reading, not out of obligation or under the weight of what I “should” do, but out of hunger. I was chasing after fresh testimonies and revelation.
I don’t think there is one master “how-to” list that will work for everyone because that’s not who God is. He’s more personal than that. But I love hearing testimonies because they break through the walls of what I know and understand and give me new ideas of things to try.
This is what I'm offering: my testimony. This is what it looked like for me.
read the gospels.
I want to say I started with Jesus because it’s all about Jesus, but I wasn’t kidding when I said I started reading the Gospels because that’s what he wrote about in Blue Like Jazz. It really doesn’t matter what your reason is, just pick a starting point.
read the message.
I started by reading The Message translation because I've always heard the Bible is one big story, but I never could see it that way and I thought if I read a translation that read more like a story than choppy verses, it would help. It did—and it also helped to use the Bible app on my phone and switch between translations for more context.
read out loud.
This idea was inspired by Redeeming Love, by Francine Rivers, and has been the ultimate game-changer. If nothing else, read the words out loud. It helps pick the stories up off the page and make the people seem more real when I am also speaking out loud the things they spoke. Also? Faith comes by hearing.
ask Holy Spirit.
As a writer I like to copy down the passages that catch my attention—ones I love or am confused by or don’t understand at all—and journal a summary or my response. But the most helpful thing is to pause, to consider it, to respond—and to ask Holy Spirit all my questions. That’s what He’s there for.
keep going.
My routine is constantly changing because, I'll be honest, sometimes consistency gets boring. Whenever I feel like I'm losing interest or excitement, I try to mix it up a little bit. I start reading in a new translation or journaling with a different colored pen or adding a new resource or devotional. The details might look different but the important thing is to keep going.
The best advice I can really give is to just get started. Show up. Say yes. Open your hands. And ask questions. God will meet you there, right where you are, and He won’t leave you there. This is what I know and have experienced to be true: He is always moving––always taking you further––from nothing to something.
this passage is an excerpt from my ebook, from nothing to something.