Here lies the Bible study on Revelation that I did three pages of and never picked up again.
Rest in peace, Bible app that I had a streak of four days and never touched again.
In loving memory of the prayer journal that I wrote in a few times before leaving more than half of the pages empty.
Anyone relate to this?
I can’t tell you how many times I start a new Bible study, so excited to get in the Word, only to do it twice and never think about it again. I download a new app, even allowing notifications, do two or three days and then it offloads onto the cloud. I open my prayer journal, ready to dive back in and see my last entry was six months ago.
The hard part is I don’t mean to stop. I genuinely want to spend consistent time in the Word and with the Lord, so why is it so hard for me to stick to a Bible study? I clearly love the Lord, but why can’t I make time for Him?
The Gap Between Wanting To and Starting
If we think of this problem as a logic equation, we might think: I must not want to do this Bible study enough since I keep stopping. But wanting to do something and starting to do it are two entirely different things (unfortunately). We can want something completely AND still not be able to make ourselves do it. This gap has a name: executive dysfunction.
Let’s direct our imaginations to my overflowing laundry room. I want to complete all the laundry in there and get it all put away. I have no problem putting the loads in the washer, transferring it to the dryer, that’s all fine. But when I transfer the clean clothes to the couch to fold and put away? That’s where my whole system fails.
I genuinely want to buckle down and put it all away. But my capacity short-circuits, and my brain physically can’t launch into the task.
Executive dysfunction.
And this isn’t an excuse, but an explanation. A name to place on this difficult in-between separating desire and capacity.
2 Corinthians 8:12 tells us, “For if the readiness is there, it is acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what he does not have.” God evaluates our eagerness relative to what we actually have; not against some outside standard we can’t possibly meet.
In other words, God doesn’t grade us on a curve we can’t reach.
The Guilt Is the Evidence
If you’re like me, you might beat yourself up about not sticking with these Bible studies, quiet times, and prayer journals. We might think, “Why don’t I care enough to do this?”
But if we truly didn’t care, we wouldn’t feel so guilty about the offloaded Scripture app.
Apathy doesn’t buy Bible studies in the first place. Apathy doesn’t feel shame about a broken streak.
The guilt we feel is the evidence that we DO care.
Psalm 42:1-2 says, “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?”
Thirsting isn’t a voluntary action; we don’t choose to be thirsty.
We HAVE the thirst. We just can’t get to the river.
When the Church Calls It Sloth
In my Seven Deadly Sins series, I wrote a post about sloth. I actually touched on unfinished Bible studies and filed it under sloth. But I had it half-wrong.
Sloth is choosing comfort and avoiding effort on purpose. It’s not caring enough to even try. Sloth avoids the discomfort of starting altogether.
Executive dysfunction wants to start but can’t cross the threshold.
Proverbs 26:14 illustrates a sluggard turning on his bed like a door on hinges. We aren’t choosing to stay in bed. We’re standing at the door unable to make our hands turn the doorknob.
What God Actually Sees
Okay, so the graveyard of unfinished Bible studies and prayer journals isn’t us being lazy. Then what is it? And is God mad at us for not sticking with it?
Psalm 103:13-14 says, “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.”
The word “dust” here isn’t shameful. It’s the reason for God’s tenderness towards us. Since we’re dust, He has compassion for us.
God isn’t sitting back in shock, finding out about our limitations when we miss day 5 of our Bible streak. He already knew before we even started.
And this isn’t “God lowers the bar for you”. He isn’t standing up in Heaven watching us with a checklist to make sure we spend thirty minutes writing in our prayer journals every day. “The bar” was never the format in the first place.
So, what can we do about this?
The Container, Not the Pursuit
Should we just conclude, “Devotions don’t apply to me”? Giving up on pursuing God isn’t the answer here either. The problem is the container, not the pursuit.
Maybe, just maybe, the format we’ve been trying isn’t the only shape faith takes. Instead of waking up early to do a guided Bible study, we can listen to Scripture in the car. We can sit in the car for two extra minutes in the parking lot and pray. Even writing one honest sentence in that journal instead of trying to fill the page works.
Five honest minutes of time spent with God is better than a performative thirty minutes of trying something that doesn’t fit.
In Romans 8:26, Paul writes, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.”
The Holy Spirit intercedes for us when we don’t know what to pray. The Spirit does the part our executive function can’t reach.
A New Door
My graveyard of unfinished Bible studies isn’t a graveyard after all. It’s a record of someone who kept trying different things to spend time with God. I don’t love God less because I’ve done two pages of my Revelation study. My brain just needs a different door.
You might also have a graveyard of unfinished devotionals and journals. But this is only evidence that you kept trying.
Your brain might just need a different door too.
