The Bible App Streak I'm Afraid to Break
The Bible App Streak I'm Afraid to Break
I opened my phone this morning the way I open it every morning now, thumb finding the little orange flame before my eyes have adjusted to the light. Two hundred and eighty seven days. I read the assigned chapter, swiped to mark it complete, and set the phone on the nightstand. Five minutes later, standing in the shower, I could not have told you a single verse of what I had just read. I knew I had done it. I could not say I had met anyone in it.
I got sober showing up to things whether I felt like it or not, folding chairs and bad coffee and a sponsor who did not care if I felt like calling him. That discipline built something in me feeling never could have. I brought the same discipline to my Bible reading, and for a long time it served me well. Somewhere along the way the showing up quietly became the whole point, and some mornings I am not protecting a relationship anymore. I am protecting a number, terrified of what it would mean about me if the flame went out.
I do not think what I am describing is doubt. I still believe every word on that page is true. What has gone quiet is the sense that anyone is on the other side of it, the way a radio station you used to get clearly starts breaking into static the farther you drive from the tower. Scripture has a word for that ache, older than my phone by three thousand years. "As the deer pants for the water brooks, So pants my soul for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God" (Psalm 42:1-2, NKJV). I read that this week and felt something close to grief, because I recognized the words and could not locate the thirst. I have been drinking from the page without tasting the water.
David named the same dryness from a wilderness that was not only geography. "O God, You are my God; Early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You In a dry and thirsty land Where there is no water" (Psalm 63:1, NKJV). He does not treat the dry season as proof he has fallen out of favor. He simply tells God he is standing in it, a different thing entirely from performing devotion at a God he cannot currently feel.
Elijah is the one I keep coming back to this week. He was not spiritually lazy when God found him in that cave, only burned out and certain his usefulness was finished. God sent a wind that tore the mountains and an earthquake and a fire, and Scripture says plainly that the LORD was not in any of them. Then came what I keep waiting for and rarely recognize when it arrives. "And after the fire a still small voice" (1 Kings 19:12, NKJV). I keep expecting my streak to produce a wind or a fire, some feeling dramatic enough to prove I am doing this right. God was in the voice so quiet it required Elijah to stop performing long enough to notice it was there.
James gives the part that is not passive, because dryness is no excuse to wait it out on the couch. "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you" (James 4:8, NKJV). The nearness is not conjured by my feelings improving first. It is a movement I make with my will while the feelings are still absent, trusting the promise attached to the moving.
David lets his own psalm hold both halves of this honestly, complaint and trust in the same breath. "How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me?" (Psalm 13:1, NKJV), and then, without ever getting an answer, "But I have trusted in Your mercy; My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation" (Psalm 13:5, NKJV). Nothing resolved between those two verses except David's willingness to keep addressing the God who felt hidden instead of walking away from Him.
Hosea points the pursuit toward knowing a Person rather than finishing a task. "Let us know, Let us pursue the knowledge of the LORD. His going forth is established as the morning; He will come to us like the rain" (Hosea 6:3, NKJV). A streak can be finished by nine in the morning. Pursuing someone never is, which is why reasoning cannot manage this alone. Reasoning can log a chapter read. Only the Spirit can turn it into water, the way Jesus described it to a woman at a well who had come for the wrong thing entirely. "But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life" (John 4:14, NKJV). Not a flame I keep feeding from outside myself. A fountain, already inside, that I have simply stopped noticing under the noise of checking a box.
I did not break my streak this morning. But I closed the app before swiping to mark it complete, sat with one verse longer than I wanted to, and told God plainly that I could not feel Him and asked Him to meet me anyway. Nothing about the static cleared instantly. God is alive tonight, and He already knows exactly which chapter you read without remembering a word of it. He has a plan for you that was never contingent on you feeling close to Him first, and He will never leave you standing alone in the dry season, however long it lasts.
---
Scriptures used (NKJV): Psalm 42:1-2; Psalm 63:1; 1 Kings 19:12; James 4:8; Psalm 13:1, 5; Hosea 6:3; John 4:14.
I opened my phone this morning the way I open it every morning now, thumb finding the little orange flame before my eyes have adjusted to the light. Two hundred and eighty seven days. I read the assigned chapter, swiped to mark it complete, and set the phone on the nightstand. Five minutes later, standing in the shower, I could not have told you a single verse of what I had just read. I knew I had done it. I could not say I had met anyone in it.
I got sober showing up to things whether I felt like it or not, folding chairs and bad coffee and a sponsor who did not care if I felt like calling him. That discipline built something in me feeling never could have. I brought the same discipline to my Bible reading, and for a long time it served me well. Somewhere along the way the showing up quietly became the whole point, and some mornings I am not protecting a relationship anymore. I am protecting a number, terrified of what it would mean about me if the flame went out.
I do not think what I am describing is doubt. I still believe every word on that page is true. What has gone quiet is the sense that anyone is on the other side of it, the way a radio station you used to get clearly starts breaking into static the farther you drive from the tower. Scripture has a word for that ache, older than my phone by three thousand years. "As the deer pants for the water brooks, So pants my soul for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God" (Psalm 42:1-2, NKJV). I read that this week and felt something close to grief, because I recognized the words and could not locate the thirst. I have been drinking from the page without tasting the water.
David named the same dryness from a wilderness that was not only geography. "O God, You are my God; Early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You In a dry and thirsty land Where there is no water" (Psalm 63:1, NKJV). He does not treat the dry season as proof he has fallen out of favor. He simply tells God he is standing in it, a different thing entirely from performing devotion at a God he cannot currently feel.
Elijah is the one I keep coming back to this week. He was not spiritually lazy when God found him in that cave, only burned out and certain his usefulness was finished. God sent a wind that tore the mountains and an earthquake and a fire, and Scripture says plainly that the LORD was not in any of them. Then came what I keep waiting for and rarely recognize when it arrives. "And after the fire a still small voice" (1 Kings 19:12, NKJV). I keep expecting my streak to produce a wind or a fire, some feeling dramatic enough to prove I am doing this right. God was in the voice so quiet it required Elijah to stop performing long enough to notice it was there.
James gives the part that is not passive, because dryness is no excuse to wait it out on the couch. "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you" (James 4:8, NKJV). The nearness is not conjured by my feelings improving first. It is a movement I make with my will while the feelings are still absent, trusting the promise attached to the moving.
David lets his own psalm hold both halves of this honestly, complaint and trust in the same breath. "How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me?" (Psalm 13:1, NKJV), and then, without ever getting an answer, "But I have trusted in Your mercy; My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation" (Psalm 13:5, NKJV). Nothing resolved between those two verses except David's willingness to keep addressing the God who felt hidden instead of walking away from Him.
Hosea points the pursuit toward knowing a Person rather than finishing a task. "Let us know, Let us pursue the knowledge of the LORD. His going forth is established as the morning; He will come to us like the rain" (Hosea 6:3, NKJV). A streak can be finished by nine in the morning. Pursuing someone never is, which is why reasoning cannot manage this alone. Reasoning can log a chapter read. Only the Spirit can turn it into water, the way Jesus described it to a woman at a well who had come for the wrong thing entirely. "But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life" (John 4:14, NKJV). Not a flame I keep feeding from outside myself. A fountain, already inside, that I have simply stopped noticing under the noise of checking a box.
I did not break my streak this morning. But I closed the app before swiping to mark it complete, sat with one verse longer than I wanted to, and told God plainly that I could not feel Him and asked Him to meet me anyway. Nothing about the static cleared instantly. God is alive tonight, and He already knows exactly which chapter you read without remembering a word of it. He has a plan for you that was never contingent on you feeling close to Him first, and He will never leave you standing alone in the dry season, however long it lasts.
---
Scriptures used (NKJV): Psalm 42:1-2; Psalm 63:1; 1 Kings 19:12; James 4:8; Psalm 13:1, 5; Hosea 6:3; John 4:14.
Comments
Post a Comment