So I haven't done my regular evening reading for over a week. I have a continuous path through the Bible that I have been on, plus whatever other book I am in the middle of. That is the longest I have let that lapse since I started making it a priority in January 2008. Now traveling has a way of interrupting routines, but my deliberate nature usually has a way of overcoming that phenomenon. Even if I get back to my hotel room at 2am, I usually read a little, just for the sake of making some progress. Staying with other people is a little more challenging. I am not the type of person who is going to ask to be left alone to read when some else is letting me stay with them. I kind of figure that I owe them my attention. So couch surfing my way through LA all last week is the practical reason why that happened, but this week I have a nice peaceful room to myself. I am instead writing this, because in an out-of-character lack of logistical planning, I don't have my books with me. They are across camp, safely tucked away in my truck, which is a dirt-bike ride I will not be taking tonight.
Writing on here is its own routine, and that has been maintained, among other reasons because my laptop is always available to me. It probably also reveals a shift in priorities, as I have been focusing a lot more on writing than reading over the last few months. Verbally, in a conversation, I try to do a lot of listening before I start speaking, so on paper, the process is stretched out a little more. After six months of extensive reading, I am finding it more important to write as a step in processing what I am learning. In a similar way, I have only started taking a role that involves much speaking after having been there listening for over a year.
Reading the Bible is important, but the more you do it, the fewer new things you learn. There is always more depth to explore, but having been all the way through it multiple times, I am rarely surprised be something I had missed or forgotten. I have read NIV and ESV so now the new factor I have been throwing into the mix for the last few years are the Study Bible's extensive commentaries. (Which is why I won't really consider reading the Bible online this evening as fulfilling my routine.)
Some people make a habit of reading the Bible because they experience some direct psychological benefit from doing so. I rarely am conscious of anything like that, although it is interesting to see how where I happen to be reading applies to the things that are happening elsewhere in life at that point in time. I have also had numerous occasions where the New Testament passage I am reading quotes the Old Testament passage I just finished. (I aim to read "about" a chapter a day in both Testaments, but don't follow any external "Bible reading plan.") So God clearly has a sense of humor.
I aim to read the Bible consistently as a methodical approach to better understanding God, but that is not the only way to understand him better. Missing a few days is not going to kill me, and may be a good way to break the routine, and re-evaluate why I do things the way I do. Doing things purely out of habit removes most of the meaning from them, and being consistent just for its own sake is not necessarily a good thing. Routines being kept for their own sake should probably be broken on occasion, if for no other reason than to evaluate their value.
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