Spending daily time reading the Bible and praying is the foundation of discipleship. It doesn’t matter how many meetings you attend, parties you throw, or people you disciple, if you are not spending daily, personal time with God, everything else is “having a form of godliness but denying its power.” (1 Timothy 3:5). In my years as a disciple, there have been times when I didn’t know what to read next. If you are in the doldrums with your quiet times, here are a few ideas that could help pick things up.

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.

Galatians 6:9

The only wrong way to have a quiet time is not to have one. If you are in the habit of missing quiet times, pick one of these today and start. Keep in mind that God’s standard is not perfection.

The Basics

This is the method that I suggest for people who are learning to read their Bible and starting to have daily quiet times, but it is certainly not exclusive to them. There are times where life is overwhelming and we need to get back to the basics. This can be a simple, effective method of reading the Bible and applying the lessons. 

Start by choosing a book of the Bible. If you are at the very beginning of your journey or have no idea where to start, the Gospels are a great place. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are all stories of Jesus. They are easy to understand and to apply; so they make an excellent starting point. Once you have chosen a book of the Bible, choose a number of chapters. This will depend on how quickly you read and how much time you have. Again, there are no wrong choices. If you read one chapter a day and then have to re-read that same chapter a few times to ensure that you understand it, do that. If you can read 3-4 chapters and easily comprehend them, do that. This is your relationship with God, so read the Bible in the way that makes it possible for you to understand and apply.

Next, write down three things. These days I keep all my notes on my computer, so when I say “write,” I actually type, and you should do whatever works best for you. Some people learn best when they write in their notebooks and keep those notebooks forever. I focus better while I’m typing, so that’s how I keep all my notes. But three things:

1. What you read: Write down the chapters of the Bible that you read (i.e., “John 3-4”)
2. What you learned: No matter how many times you read a particular part of the Bible, there is always more to learn about it. Write down at least one new aspect of the Scriptures that you learned today.
3. How to apply it: Reading the Bible is necessary but never sufficient. There should be something in our lives that we choose to change each day because we read the Bible. Write down the one thing you will do differently today…and then actually do it differently. Hold that in your mind all day and consciously choose to do it differently.

Read the Bible in 90 Days

I have a whole post on this one, so I won’t rewrite here. But this is a life changing way to read the Bible. 

Deep Dive into One Book

Read the same book of the Bible every day for a month, but do it a little differently each day. This is great for some of the shorter books, like Paul’s letters and the minor prophets. (I highly recommend it for the minor prophets because we tend to neglect those books, and there is so much to learn from them.)

• Read it in every translation you can find.
• Read all the words on Blue Letter Bible over the course of the month
• Read about the author, audience, and time period during which is was written
• Create something based on what you read: a short story, a poem, an illustration, a yoga flow, a painting
• Read various commentaries about it – Quick note: commentaries are not gospel, so use discernment when you read them. 

Chronological Bible

This is a great Bible for learning the story, and it is very important to remember that the Bible is a story. It is the story of God’s love and redemption that takes place over centuries, and the story can get lost when the timeline gets mixed up. Reading through the chronological Bible in a year requires 4-5 chapters a day. But again, everyone learns a little differently, so if you find that reading 4-5 chapters a day is not working for you because you are not comprehending everything, slow down.

Matthew 28 says that we are teach one another everything in the Bible. There is no rush to get through it, so don’t feel compelled to read a higher number of chapters to check off your box. The goal is to read it and apply it, not to “power through” it.

Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.

Romans 10:17

Don’t fall into a different trap of saying “It’s taking me too long to read this, so I won’t finish it.” Or, “I get the verse of the day sent to me on my phone so that’s enough.” Faith comes through hearing the message, so it is important to make sure that we are taking our time to work through the Scriptures, even when it is challenging.

Topical Bible Studies

Choose a topic that you need to grow in spiritually. If you immediately think of sin that you need to repent of like “anger,” I recommend studying what the Bible says not only about that sin but also about its opposite. The opposite of anger is peace and self-control. The Bible has a lot to say about anger; I had 20 Scriptures posted all around my house for more than a year about it; but it also has a lot to say about the opposite of anger, which gave me specific instructions in how to repent.

If you spend the time studying out a topic, I recommend also writing a full lesson on what you learned. This is a way to pull together everything you learned in a memorable, digestible way. Also, teaching something is one of the best ways to learn it. Write your lesson and deliver it. Let someone sit in your audience and listen to your entire lesson. Record the lesson and put it on social media. Write it out and share it with people. Let others learn from your studies. Then be open to feedback on how to improve your lesson the next time around.

Memorize a Chapter (or a book)

My son, keep your father’s commandment,
and forsake not your mother’s teaching.
Bind them on your heart always;
tie them around your neck.

Proverbs 6:20-21

This is the slowest way to read the Bible, but we have instructions throughout the Bible to “write the words on our heart.” Your first response to this may be, “I could NEVER memorize a whole chapter.” I encourage you to consider how many songs you have memorized. If it helps to set the words to music do that. Psalms can be an excellent place to start memorization because the images lend themselves to memory, but don’t stop at the Psalms. Memorize the references too. This is part of learning to wield your sword effectively.