Ordinary Grace: Inhaling the Word

A common struggle…

The spiritual disciplines of Scripture reading and prayer are a common struggle amongst Christians. Many are dissatisfied and discouraged in how the Word and prayer fit into their daily and weekly routines. Basic as they seem, a lack of time spent with God in these ways is at the root of why many Christians feel spiritually dry.

These rhythms of the Christian life go hand-in-hand and are often described as breathing1. One inhales Scripture as God speaking to them, and then exhales in prayer in response.

There are many spiritual disciplines that are important and many areas of the Christian life that deserve attention, but mastery of any subject or practice with poor breathing technique will lead to exhaustion and weariness, and to not breathe at all leads to suffocation and spiritual expiration. In the first of two short meditations on spiritual breathing, I hope to share some helpful reflections and techniques on inhaling Scripture.

1-Knowing the Story

A key reason people feel lost and discouraged when reading the Bible is that they don’t know the story of Scripture. The Bible is a fascinating piece of ancient literature that largely takes place in the Middle East and Asia Minor, with cultural encounters with ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans. It also sees the rise and fall of ancient Israel, as well as the birth and first steps of the largest spiritual renewal movement in history; Christianity. But what is the story all about?

The story told by Scripture is that God created a beautiful world designed to spread His beauty and for creation to enjoy His glory. In this world humanity is given the highest rank and privilege among all other creatures in that they are made in the image of God. They are given the ability to make ethical and moral choices in ways that animals cannot. With this choice they rebel against the beauty and goodness of God, choosing rather to build their own world, making things after their own image, and spread decay rather than beauty, and grief rather than joy.

The Bible is “a unified story that leads to Jesus”2, one that tells a story of an evil, deceiving serpent, and a promise of one to come who will reverse the de-creation of the world by stomping on the serpent’s head. There is a succession of heroes and villains, culminating in the greatest hero of all– Jesus, who will defeat the serpent (now pictured as a dragon). He will do this as a lion and a lamb, meaning that He is strong, but His strength and power will often surprise us as he wages His war against the dragon.

Ultimately, the story is about Jesus righting the wrongs of the world, and the Bible ends with a call to join Him in this great work3.

How do I find Jesus outside of the Gospels?

There are four questions you can ask of any passage of Scripture to learn where you are in the story. First, what does this passage say about the God who made the world? Second, what does this passage say about my state in that world? Third, where can I go to reunite who I am with who God is? Last, how am I being called to join God in His work of renewal in the world?

Just about everyone in the world knows that something isn’t right with the way things are. The problem is that we don’t know why it’s wrong. Injustice surrounds us and is easily identified, but the ideal that we long for is elusive and slips from our grasp. We must start with what the passage says about the God who made the world because it gives us the why behind the injustice of the world. God created a good and perfect world for us to inhabit.

When we start with God, we can then rightly see what the passage says about our own state in the world. If the standard is the beauty and perfection of God, then we must ask where we fit into the grand scheme of things. Have we contributed to the ugliness that surrounds us? If so, how can we reverse all the brokenness and realign ourselves with God? The problem is that we cannot. Billions of people (including you and I) have searched for ways to make amends, and we have been found wanting.

This leads us to the one hope of joining God in His mission to renew the world. According to God’s plan we humans were meant to work with Him on this mission, so our hope must share in our humanity and our agency. However, this hope must also be perfect, without spreading any ugliness in the world. Seeing as all of our efforts of renewal also are tainted by decay, this leaves us only one choice– Jesus. As a man Jesus shares in our humanity, taking on the challenges of living in this broken world. As God, He is able to live the human experience in perfection, setting in motion a process that leads us to a new creation, one without war, famine, or injustice.

Dane Ortlund calls finding Jesus on every page of Scripture the “Gospel approach to” the Bible. He writes “we read every passage as somehow contributing to the single, overarching storyline of Scripture, which culminates in Jesus.”4

Once we encounter Jesus, we must choose one of three things. We can try to create a new world on our own without His help (assuming the place of God), oppose His new creation by destroying the world around us, or we can join Him, recognizing that He is the perfect image of the beauty and glory of God, having come to us in true humanity. To this last path I hope many who read this will follow.

2-Learning to meet with Jesus Every Day

I am on team Jesus. Imperfect as I am, I am following Him in His mission to make all things new. Knowing the story makes understanding the various parts of Scripture and how they connect to each other easier. Understanding makes reading more enjoyable, but that doesn’t mean that the habit of daily reading is automatic or without its challenges for me. So, how do I pursue the discipline without becoming legalistic?

There is a lot that could be said here, and I will leave much unsaid for sake of brevity. Where I would start is that breathing only becomes natural and passive when it has been learned and practiced. Sticking with the analogy of breathing, we should not assume that we are like a healthy newborn baby who never has to think about the next breath. Rather, we should consider ourselves as spiritual infants in the NICU. Because our lungs are weak and our capacity for oxygen limited, we need to be on a ventilator.

If we were to walk into the NICU of a hospital and see a premature baby hooked up to a breathing machine, in sadness we would recognize “that’s not how it’s supposed to be”, but we would never accuse the child, parents, or the medical staff for not letting life happen unaided and unassisted. Likewise, when a brother or sister is struggling to inhale the Word, we are right to see that as a problem. And we should never be ashamed to ask for help with our breathing.

On that note, here are five pieces of practical advice that can be adapted and implemented into your daily habit.

First, pray for a desire to love reading the Bible. If prayer is a struggle, I will be writing about that in my next post. However, a sincere prayer as simple as “Father, please help me understand Your Word, to find Jesus in it, and to love and worship you in what I read”, is a true and good thing to pray.

Second, grow in your understanding of the story of Scripture. We have already discussed this, but below I will recommend a few resources to help you in this endeavor.

Third, have a plan. While goal setting can become robotic or legalistic, it is still wise to consider what one can realistically do in the present season of life. A reading plan is very helpful, as it will help you work through all of Scripture within a certain timeframe. I would recommend beginning with a New Testament reading plan, or a chronological reading plan.

Fourth, understand what Bible reading is and isn’t. It is so easy for us to see our time in Scripture as a good work, habit, or duty that Christians ought to perform to be a better Christian. Technically, it is a good thing to do, a great habit to be in, and you cannot grow apart from the Word, but those are all secondary to the main thing. Reading the Bible is about meeting Jesus and letting Him bring you into the story of redemption that is playing out all around you. Friends, that is a delight, not merely a duty. We are not earning favor by reading the Bible. Jesus won and secured our favor with His death and resurrection. The Christian life, including reading God’s Word, is one of “Spirit-powered, Gospel-driven, Faith-fueled Effort”.5

Fifth and last, accountability and encouragement are vital. I have five or so fellow believers who reach out to me on a regular basis to ask me how my walk with Jesus is going, and how they can pray for me. One is my wife, another is a peer, and the rest are men far older and farther along than I am in the Christian life. Without these people I would suffocate. Also, I text several different guys every other week, asking them the exact same questions. That community is life giving, and I could not move forward without it.

In conclusion…

We have barely scratched the surface, but I hope it is the starting point that someone needs. Below are resources linked that will help you grow and understand some topics that are directly related to the discipline and delight of inhaling Scripture. We would do well to put down the theology books on occasion and pick up a children’s Bible storybook and recapture the wonder of the story of God. I close with a quote from Dane Ortlund– “to read Scripture is to read of Christ. To read it is to hear His voice. And to hear His voice of comfort and counsel is to hear an invitation to become the human being God destined you to be.”6

Sources Cited

1 I am unsure of where I first came across reading and prayer as spiritual breathing, though I can point to Paul E. Miller and Dane Ortlund as recent encounters with the analogy.

2 The Bible Project Site

3 N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope

4 Dane Ortlund, Deeper

5 Kevin DeYoung, The Hole in Our Holiness

6 Ortlund, Deeper

Resources on the Story of the Bible

Graeme Goldsworthy, According to Plan

Vaughan Roberts, God’s Big Picture

Kevin DeYoung, The Biggest Story Bible Storybook

Michael Morales, Exodus Old and New

Nancy Guthrie, Even Better than Eden

The Bible Project