Do you set a goal to pray and read/study your Bible more only to struggle for consistency? Every believer wants to grow in knowledge of God’s Word and relationship with Jesus through prayer. But life happens and you are still praying the same amount, missing some days. And Bible study? Forget about it. You’re lucky if you read your Bible every day for just a few minutes. Don’t beat yourself up. If prayer and Bible study came easy to us, I would not be writing about it. I want to help you start to get there.
Common Culprits against Consistency
Why do we struggle for consistency even when something is important? Here are five reasons you might be struggling.
- Cramped Calendars. Our calendars are so full of events we don’t have time for anything. We’re all guilty of busyness. If we don’t have a full calendar we won’t meet our responsibilities. But our schedule is destroying time with God and growth as Christians.
- Lack of Knowledge/Skill. You open your Bible and get lost. “What did I study before?” You go to pray and after five minutes, you are done with your list. Now what?
- Procrastination. Some of us have become masters at procrastination. We put things off that we are not good at or think we have time for. “I’ll get to that later.”
- Binging/Cramming. You’ve tried those read the Bible in a year plans. You got behind and you have to binge to get back on track. You’re not learning from your Bible study.
- Priorities. You have huge task lists and try to prioritize everything that needs done but you leave things, for tomorrow. Your tasks keep building up each day.
Solving Procrastination and Binging for Consistency in Our Habits
We get into some bad habits, like procrastination and binging to make up for lost time. But if we want to improve our prayer and Bible study life, we need to understand how habits affect us. A habit is something you repeat regularly.
In our struggle for consistency, we don’t realize our bad habits in prayer and Bible study. How long does it take to build a habit? You think it’s 21 days but it could be anywhere from 3-8 weeks for it to become an ingrained habit. We must replace bad habits with good ones, including prayer and Bible study.
Solving for Lack of Knowledge and Skills
Our struggle for consistency may be hindered by a lack of knowledge on how to pray or study our Bibles. We need a skill boost. We wonder why the apostles could pray for healing for someone and God healed them. They knew how to pray.
We wonder why everyone knows more about the Bible. You need to build consistency over time with the right tools. I will give you some tools to improve your prayer life and your Bible study abilities, but first we must address the elephant in the room.
Solving for the Big One – Priorities
Priorities are one of the hardest things to change. That’s why I saved it for last. How can we stop struggling for consistency in our priorities? This will be the meanest this pastor gets in this article.
We make priorities for the things we care about the most. If we really want something, we make time for it. We clear our schedules and try harder. Whether it’s sports, learning a life skill, or picking up a hobby, we make it happen no matter what.
If prayer is a priority, we make it happen. We do everything we can to become more effective in prayer. If we want to know more about the Bible and use it in our daily lives, we set aside the time to study it in depth.
Tips for Improving Your Daily Prayer Habits
How can you become more effective in prayer? The best way is to pray more. God wants to hear from you. It will become more natural as you do it. Here are some other things to try:
- Books on Prayer. There Let me recommend three that may help you.
- Prevailing Prayer by Dwight L. Moody
- Going Higher with God in Prayer by A. W. Tozer
- Praying with Paul by D. A. Carson
- Praying with Others. Listening to others pray and letting them give you the grace to learn little by little will help, and they may give you some pointers.
- Learning How to Communicate with God. Do you talk in your prayers until you are done and then say, “Amen”? We must learn to listen to God and hear His voice. Prayer is a two-way conversation.
- Prayer Models. Jesus gave us one, the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6. Instead of reciting it, pray through it by exalting God, Asking for His Kingdom to come to our world, and then ask for needs. Other model prayers like Psalm 51 for confession and the ACTS model (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication). There are others, like praying through Scripture passages like the Armor of God.
Tips for Improving Your Bible Study Habits
What about Bible study? It seems like no helps that have worked for you. Try some of these:
- Books on Bible Study. My favorite is How to Read the Bible for All It’s Worth. It teaches you much more than just reading the Bible.
- Get a Good Study Bible. Study Bibles provide notes for context and explanation as you read. There’s a good free one called the Faithlife Study Bible for Apple and Android. It has details and media. You can get specialty study Bibles and for many Bible versions.
- Study the Bible with Others. You will learn a lot from other people who have been studying the Bible longer. They will help you learn how to study it for yourself too.
- Bible Study Tools. Tools like concordances, Bible dictionaries, Bible background books, commentaries, and Bible software. Find a good introduction to the Old and New Testaments that will give you background, a concordance keyed to a certain Bible version (Strong’s is the go-to), a Bible dictionary you can look up key terms in the Bible (like the Lexham Bible Dictionary that comes with the free version of Logos Bible Study software, and a one-volume commentary covering the whole Bible),
Conclusion
You can do it! You can be more consistent with prayer so it’s no longer a struggle. You can study your Bible like the pros. Address the five common culprits against consistency to find out where you can make changes. You will become a spiritual powerhouse in prayer. You will be the one helping others learn about the Bible. Start today a little at a time and you will get there.
Author Bio
Jonathan Srock is a quadriplegic ordained minister in the Assemblies of God. You can find his books and blog posts at JonathanSrock.com. When he’s not writing, doing Bible studies, or preaching, Jonathan enjoys watching baseball and football, spending time with his family, and reading.
