As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. This post may contain affiliate links. See my full disclosures, Terms of Use, and privacy policies on my "privacy" page.
I love the Word of God.
I don’t know quite when it happened, but I know it was sometime when I was young and I think it began because I needed it so much.
When I was afraid or lonely or confused as a child, by God’s grace and because of the influence of my grandparents, I turned to the Bible.
Before I had even turned 10, I had already begun filling a tiny notebook with verses that brought me comfort and counsel and hope. I carried that spiral notebook with me everywhere, flipping through the verses often and praying them back to God.
Though life felt unreliable and my heart so insecure, I found comfort and courage in the reliability of God’s Word, my only security in Him.
But even though I learned early to depend on the truth of God’s Word, my love for the Bible has been a fickle one.
Like any journey, there have been ups and downs and turning away and recommitting. There have been times when I have had no desire to read the Bible or I haven’t known where to start. Many times I haven’t understood what I was reading or found God’s Word to be boring. And how often it was (is!) that I knew God’s Word but didn’t obey!
Today God led me to share about desire.
What if I don’t have the desire to read the Bible?
So many of you have shared with me that you just don’t have the desire to read the Bible, or if the desire is there, you certainly don’t delight in God’s Word.
Friend, let me tell you: you are not the only one.
Few of us can relate to the Psalmist who exclaimed, “Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day!” (Psalm 119:97)
and
“How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!” (Psalm 139:17)
For many of us, these verses don’t describe our longings! If we come to the Word at all, we come with a sense of obligation and maybe even dread. We find the Bible to be boring and think reading Scripture requires a lot of effort. We don’t naturally hunger for and delight in God or the wisdom we find in reading His Word!
But Friend, you don’t need to be stuck there. You can change your desires. You can develop an appetite for the Word of God!
How to Develop a Desire for the Word of God
I think the two best things you can do to develop a desire for the Word of God are to pray and to start reading the Bible!
Pray
Admit to God what’s in your heart. If you hate reading the Bible, tell Him so! If you don’t even desire to have a desire to read the Scriptures, tell Him that too! God can handle it, and He won’t be surprised—He already knows what is in your heart.
Ask God to give you a hunger for and delight in His Word. Ask God to “wow” you! This is what the Psalmist did. Look at Psalm 119:18, “Open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.” The Voice translation puts it this way, “Let me see clearly so that I may take in the amazing things coming from Your law.”
This is the same Psalmist who later said, “How sweet are your words to my taste” (Psalm 119:103).
God can develop in us a taste and appetite for His Word! Let’s ask Him to work that miracle in our hearts.
Read the Bible
As you pray, start reading the Bible! If you’re unfamiliar with the Bible or aren’t sure where to begin, try starting with the book of Psalms, one of the Gospels (the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John), or even one of Paul’s letters, like 1 Corinthians.
If you’ve read the Bible often but found yourself in a slump, try starting by meditating on the incredible promises of God and praying through the Psalms. If you’ve become so familiar with the passages that you just skim through, reading in a different translation could help slow you down and focus on the meaning or help you understand the passage in a new way.
While you’re reading, keep praying! Ask God to open your understanding and quicken your heart to long for His Word. If you’re having a hard time understanding what you’re reading, ask a friend to read along with you or join a Bible study at church or online.
Remember Truth
God’s Word is living and active (Hebrews 4:12) — by His Spirit, God makes the truth of the Bible come alive in our hearts and work in us. His Word will never return empty but will accomplish the work God has planned (Isaiah 55:11)!
Be honest with God in prayer and keep on reading. God can change our hearts and give us new desires. Let’s ask Him to work, do our part, and trust Him for the results!
p.s. — If you’re not sure you even want to desire the Word…
{And if you’re not sure why you should even want to desire the Word, just look at some of the benefits of reading the Bible and of immersing ourselves in the Word of God!!
The Word of God:
- is powerful, working its purpose in our hearts (1 Thes. 2:13)
- is sanctifying (John 17:17)
- makes us wise (Psalm 19:7)
- gives understanding (Psalm 119:130)
- gives life (Psalm 119:93, Matthew 4:4, John 6:63)
- gives joy (Psalm 19:8)
- gives strength to the weak (Psalm 119:28)
- gives comfort to the discouraged (Psalm 119:76)
- gives guidance (Psalm 119:105)
- brings peace (Psalm 119:165)
- brings freedom (Psalm 119:32, 45)z
- brings salvation to the lost (2 Tim. 3:15, Psalm 119:155)
- promises great reward (Psalm 19:11)
Kind of amazing isn’t it? What a faithful God we serve!
Recommended Resources for You:
- Book :: Women in the Word — A great book to whet your appetite for the Word and great teaching on how to study the Bible.
- Planner :: The Faithful Life Planner — My absolute favorite planner for women! Start your day with Jesus and center your whole life around Him!
- Journal :: Write the Word Journal — A simple way to write, pray, and meditate on one Scripture verse a day
- Devotional :: My favorite gospel-saturated devotionals for women
- Journaling Bible :: These are currently my favorite for Bible reading. The covers are beautiful (the sales page pictures don’t do these beauties justice!). The font is larger than most Bibles. And there is a full journal page on every page to write out thoughts, impressions, prayers, and notes.
Question for You:
What keeps you from reading the Bible? Have you ever struggled with a lack of desire for the Word?
Want to help your kids know and love God’s Word, too? Download our Surprisingly Simple Plan to get your kids in the Word!!
Really loved this article. Great job. Praying you are well
Love you
Sally
Erika, thank you so much for sharing these thoughts. I whole heartedly agree with all of them!
You write so well and always give us something to think about, and also to act upon! Thank you!
In studying about fasting…..which is what I’m doing today, I have been starkly reminded that perhaps one of the biggest reasons we have no appetite is that we are so FULL of many other secondary things. It would be ‘unfair’ for a child to beg his parent for a huge appetite to feast on the approaching Thanksgiving banquet if the child had just been binging on chips, candy, juice, etc. First of all, there is no room left in the stomach cavity and more importantly, the taste buds have been ‘over stimulated’ and the brain has signaled ‘no more’, in order to prevent any more ingesting of what might potentially become regurgitation of too much food!
Are we who live in such an affluent society, not only consuming too much food, but also too much of ‘secondary words’? Our kindles, books, Facebook, blogs, media of all shapes and forms are filling us to the full before we even have a chance (or have consciously set aside time) to feed on The Word. If we have no appetite for His Word, might we stop and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the other “words” we have been ingesting, and to what degree, and consider how we can ‘make room’ for the essential (Man cannot live on bread alone, but by every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God) before perusing all the other sources that vie for our cravings?
wow Christina Sweeting! Love your comment! It is so true!
That’s some interesting insight! Not hungry because we’ve filled up on junk food heavy in calories but void of nutrition. Wow! That is so clear to me. Thank you Christina and thank you Erika!
I am a 75 year old man that has come from a broken home,that has never know true love of his parents,because of all the anger and hate that they had for each other and m older brother and I were caught in the middle.Charles left at the age of16 or 17to excape the beating from a step father that should have been shot because of his way of doing things.Denton,the step father was a very mean and enjoyed enflecting pain on who ever he could,and by being a cop,he came up with some pretty painful things.My mother was not much better,they were to of a kind.Most of my life has been spent being put down and beaten,and that I believe is why I carry so much hate and anger.I use to read the Bible years ago,but because things happening I laid it down.I have lost my wife of 40 years.back in 2016,and I laid the Bible down, but I am trying to get back in to it ,but it is really hard to do. I am a Viet nam vet,and some of the things that I have seen brothers me still.When we came home from nam,we had women in the airport asking us how many babyish did we killed,they were not concerned how many men died keeping them safe,or the fact that those babies had a bomb on their back and was told to go up to 5 Or 6 vets and pull the pin and kill them.I have gotten better with some of my anger and hate,but,that is because of Jesus Christ,but I still have a long way to go,but pray that GOD will have his way in my life and that I can over come,and get right with God and get back to reading his word.I want to serve GOD here on earth,but when he calls,I want to be ready to go to a place where there is no more pain sorry or grief. I have tried to live my life my way,but I screwed it up,so now I want to try to do things Gods way! With Love, and many thanks,GOD BLESS. MIKE