reading

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How Necessary is Experience?

We live in a society where people won’t receive advice from those who haven’t “walked in their shoes.” The older I get, the more I realize that experience is not always necessary.

Whether I have been married or not, I know how husbands and wives are to treat each other. Whether or not I ever have children, I know a few things about what works and what doesn’t work in raising children. I also realize that all children are different, so what works for one may not work for another. Basic principles can be the same though.

The Bible has clear guidelines as to how a person is to live. It really doesn’t matter what I would do if I were going through your circumstances. There is still a right way to handle a situation and a wrong way.

I believe part of the reason people get defensive is that they do not want to be judged for bad decisions they are making. If you are living in any way contrary to the Word of God, you are judged already. No one should be unwilling to receive input, regardless of the source.

advice

For many years, I have periodically counseled people on marriage, parenting, and other issues. I often felt unqualified, but people needed help so I prayed and asked God for wisdom. Between Scripture and things I have learned from reading, praying, and watching others, I believe God used me during those times.

Too many times, people use excuses to do what they want to do. They are not interested in what the Bible says; they want to do what feels good in the moment. Because of this, children are hurt by parents divorcing. Selfishness reigns so that there is constant heartache and strife. God gave instructions for a reason. He loves His children and desires them to live a peaceful, holy life that He can bless. There is a reason that he condemns greed, envy, unforgiveness, hatred, etc. Those things cause us to do things that we will live to regret … if we live long enough.

Maybe I haven’t gone through what you are going through, but I know we serve a loving God. I know that His plan for you is good and not evil … IF you follow His ways.

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What’s our Problem?

“I’m too busy. My schedule doesn’t work. I don’t like to read. I’m bored with it. I don’t understand it. I’ve read it before. I don’t know…I’m not drawn to it.I just struggle getting into it.”

Have you ever heard these excuses before regarding reading our Bibles? Have you ever felt that way or even heard yourself say these things or other similar excuses? Jim Elliff lays out a brief but convicting article here regarding WHY you (we) don’t read our Bibles.

Read Jim’s article “Why You Don’t Read Your Bible” HERE

To follow onto Jim’s article, I want to add the following thoughts from a blog post I wrote in 2009 on the same topic:

I spent 7 years in engineering school and have been working as an engineer in the industry for 17 years now, which means my brain thrives on numbers. I think numbers. It drives people crazy, but you can pretty much break any issue down to pure numbers and quantify the results to make a point. Often, the output of one of these data calculations makes a strong impact. Let me show you what I mean.

Recently I had a conversation with a couple of my friends regarding how often we read our Bibles. The answer all of us commonly give is, “I don’t read enough.” Or, “I wish I could read more.” Or, the worst of all, “I’m just too busy to read the Bible. I can’t find time to fit it in.”

So, we’ve all been there and we all have friends that have been there. Maybe we haven’t just been there, but maybe we are stuck in that rut now! Maybe this blog post is a little painful and these numbers will make it worse. It hurts, but we are in it together, right? Brothers and sisters keeping each other accountable.

Let’s take the schedule of a typical week: 7 days full of working, sleeping, eating, driving, etc.

A 7 day week consists of 168 hours, which expands out to 10,080 minutes. Yes, 10,080 minutes…I think you can see where we are going with this.

Let’s now remove the minutes for sleeping, working, and driving since it is pretty hard to read while doing these tasks. Even though we could listen to an audio Bible while driving…if we really wanted to. Typically the average person sleeps 8 hours a day, works 8 hours a day (5 days a week) and drives 1 hour a day. (8*7+8*5+1*7) = 103 hours, this now expands out to 6,180 minutes.

10,080 – 6,180 = 3,900 (65 hours) left over.

So, what are you going to do with your spare 3,900 minutes a week? I’m asking my self the same question. 65 hours. 65 hours left over.

Can we spend a measly 15 minutes a day (105 minutes a week) reading the Bible and still have over 3700 minutes leftover? Can we spare 15 minutes a day reading the “word” of the glorious, all powerful, omnipotent creator of the universe who is our savior and our refuge who sacrificed himself for our sins and paid the price forever and ever and he who blesses us continually and he who we will spend all eternity worshiping in Heaven? Will we spend a few minutes a day with Him and reading what He has said to us? Can we spend 30 minutes? More? Or is our extra 3900 minutes to important and filled with self-satisfying tasks and activities to share it with God?

We would if we want to. We would if we loved Jesus.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 (ESV) – “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

1 Timothy 4:6-8 (ESV) – “If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed. Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.”