In the last several days, I’ve seen many posts circulating on social media with people announcing their plans to read the Bible in a year. This is an admirable pursuit; kudos! May your reading be fruitful and transformative.
But some of you out there might be fighting guilt that you aren’t pursuing such a rigorous path of Bible reading this year.
Maybe, if you’re honest, you’re doing good to grab a few minutes to read one verse a day with your hands full of littles.
Maybe you are mentally and emotionally drained as you endure painful trials; you simply can’t seem to focus on inhaling large chunks of Scripture, nor studying chapters or a book of the Bible with intense depth.
Maybe you are physically exhausted as you go through a season of intense caregiving, recovery from an injury, fighting a long-term illness, or performing a grueling job, and all you can do is put verses you memorized long ago on auto-loop in your mind.
Maybe you’re tired of spiritual disciplines turning into check lists and to-dos and you’re longing to just get back to enjoying Jesus.
But you’re supposed to read the Bible in a year, right? It’s January. Time to start right. Set goals and lofty aspirations. Or, if you’re not taking that route, you should definitely be diving deep into a book of the Bible, studying it in depth with pages of notes and cross references and Greek and Hebrew word studies and color-coded symbols above keywords…right?
Chapter verse me, my friends. Reading and studying Scripture at length and in depth is wonderful thing. But God doesn’t mandate it. There’s no prescription in Scripture for how to spend your quiet time.
Meditating on God’s Word
What does God want from us when it comes to our relationship with His Word? When we look at the breadth of Scripture, we see that:
He wants us to love it He wants us to hide it in our hearts He wants us to meditate on it day and night He wants it to renew our minds and transform our hearts He wants us to share it with othersRun the word “study” through a concordance and you’ll find 4 references to studying the Word. Run the words “meditate” and “meditation” through and you’ll find 4 TIMES that number in reference to meditating on God’s word/law/precepts. That is by no means a perfect method, but at face value, maybe that should tell us something. For all our emphasis on Bible study and Bible reading plans, let’s not forget meditation.
Meditating on the Word is marinating in it. It’s far less about DOING something and far more about BEING with the Word, with Jesus.
You don’t marinate meat by putting a different sauce on it every 15 minutes. No, you marinate meat by letting it sit in one sauce for hours, if not days. The longer the better. The longer the meat sits in the sauce, the more the meat will take on the flavor of the sauce. The sauce transforms the meat with time. With saturation.
The same is true with the Word of God. It is a wonderful thing to read the Word front to back at least once in your life and have a working knowledge of every book of the Bible. I’m a firm believer in biblical literacy and theological grounding. Without that, we can easily misunderstand and misapply Scripture.
But if we really want the Word of God to transform us, it has to move beyond our heads. And to do that, we have to meditate on it. This requires sitting with the same small chunk of Scripture for a long period of time—marinating in it. Sitting in it. Stewing in it. Soaking it in. Rereading it. Dwelling on it. Repeating it. Letting it saturate our minds and our hearts.
Marinating in God’s Word
The last few years, particularly the last year, have taught me that some seasons of life call for a pause from lengthy reading and in-depth studying for a time of marination. Sometimes this is by choice as we realize that the pursuit itself—the reading, the studying, the learning—has become more important to us than enjoying and delighting in Jesus. Sometimes life gives us little choice; we’re too exhausted by our circumstances to have the wherewithal for deep study or lengthy readings.
I’m here to tell you that’s okay. Don’t be discouraged by all the Bible reading plans and read-the-Bible-in-a-year announcements. Don’t pressure yourself to conform to those spoken or unspoken expectations you have of yourself or think other Christians have of you.
Guess what? Jesus just wants to be with you. He wants your whole heart. He wants your childlike faith. He wants to be your joy and your delight. He wants you to rest in Him, truly rest, from all your strivings. He wants your doing FOR Him to overflow from your being WITH Him. Whether you read the entire Bible or one verse in 2025.
So if you find yourself where I found myself, unable to focus on more than a short chunk of Scripture at a time for any number of reasons, let me encourage you:
Read Psalm 16 every. Single. Day. For as long you want. A month? Great. Six months? Fantastic. A year? Hallelujah.
I read Psalm 16 regularly for nearly two years. Eventually I added in Psalm 77 and lived there for a while, going back to Psalm 16 on a regular basis. Most recently I added Psalms 42-43. Reading and rereading these Psalms has been the bulk of my time in the Word for a while.
And guess what? As I read and reread them, they are becoming increasingly woven into the fabric of my being. Not by trying. By being. By soaking them in. The verses come to mind throughout the day. They are affecting the attitudes of my heart. They shaping my perspective. They are changing my walk with God for the better.
Transformed by God’s Word
You see, if you read Psalm 16 every day, somewhere along the line you start to truly believe (not head belief – deep in your core belief) that the Lord is enough regardless of your circumstances, and He becomes your source of joy.
If you read Psalm 77 every day, somewhere along the line you start to pour out your deepest wrestlings to the Lord, finding comfort in drawing near to Him even when you have no answers and no resolve.
If you read Psalm 42-43 every day, somewhere along the line you begin to praise the Lord again, calling your downcast soul to lift its weary head and rest it on Jesus.
Reading isn’t the goal. Studying isn’t the goal. Knowledge isn’t the goal.
Transformation IS.
These Psalms have been my lifeline through a long season of grief, loss, and hard. I’m a different person because of them. Letting go of objectives and doing for my quiet times and learning to meditate and BE has given God the margin to do HIS transforming work in my heart. That’s transformation I can’t achieve, not by any amount of trying or theological knowledge or Bible study.
Someday, perhaps next week, perhaps in another six months, I will emerge from this season. I will find my energy renewed. I will have mental, physical, and emotional margin to deep dive into a book of the Bible, doing the word studies and the notes and the cross references like I’ve loved to do in the past.
But for now, I’m marinating in His Word one life-transforming piece at a time. I encourage you to do the same.
Delighting in God’s Word
Maybe it’s one Psalm. Maybe it’s a short passage. Maybe it’s one single verse, perhaps one you already have memorized.
Just bring what little you have to the table. Offer it up to Him. He will bless it and make it enough to transform you in the ways He wants. Along the way, maybe you’ll rediscover a simple delight in Jesus and His Word that you’d forgotten.
May you discover in 2025 in new and profound ways that God is your exceeding joy, your portion and your cup, and in His presence are pleasures forevermore.