Over the years I have had a number of conversations with fellow believers who have confirmed my experience: devotions can often become tiresome and difficult to sustain. While there are likely those who have rarely or never struggled with their motivation to read Scripture, find something of interest in the text, or pray, I’m not one of those people. Instead, I’ve found that my desire for devotional reading of Scripture has often been like “a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.” There have been times when spending time in the Word was a highly anticipated event, and others when I’ve been lazy and unmotivated going for days, weeks, or even longer, never having opened the Bible except for Sundays at church.
In addition to this fluctuating desire for the Scriptures, there have been times when I’ve wondered if my approach to reading Scripture was improperly motivated. What I mean is that I’ve found that I can easily fall in love with words, structures, stories, and the greater narrative of the text but forget the fact that Scripture is only a sign pointing to a greater reality: the person of Jesus. In these times I feel like the people to whom Jesus spoke in John 5:39-40 when he said, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.” Essentially, my eyes would rarely look through the Scripture to see Jesus; rather, they looked at the Scriptures and saw words.
Even with these struggles, I know that if I’m to continue growing spiritually I need to read the Bible consistently. But I often find myself trudging through the text verse by verse, only to realize after a few minutes that my mind is elsewhere reviewing the upcoming day’s schedule, replaying highlights of the movie or sporting event I had seen the night before, or any one of the almost infinite number of possible distractions I can easily find. At such times I usually end up reading the passage three or four times before realizing I have no idea what the passage is saying. I often just give up, close the Bible, say a prayer, and go on with my day.
Unless I miss my mark, I think this struggle occurs more frequently than most people would like to admit leaving well-meaning believers in a dry time with regard to reading the Bible. While I don’t think there is a “magic pill” to solve this problem, it’s possible that as we see how others approach their devotional time we can learn new things that may help with our own struggles. It is with this assumption in mind that I present this book. Our specific struggles may not be the same, but I hope that as you read how I’ve approached the reading of Scripture, and in particular the Psalms, you may be encouraged to once again open the Bible with fresh eyes to see what the Lord might have for you to learn about Him and about yourself.