"And you shall set the bread of the Presence on the table before me regularly." Exodus 25:30
Think about your life? What you do? An average day? Where do you place your deepest connections with God? Do you have a regular time with God?
(pause for reflection)
I'm guessing many of you answer: I don't. I know I should, but I don't have a regular time with God. Most people I talk to say they want a more regular time with God and admit their lives are far from it.
The good news is your not alone. The bad news is you can't stay this way.
What is Regularly?
There are many ways we use the word regular. We drink regular coffee. We fill our tank with regular gas. We shop at the regular stores with the regular things for sale. This means the customary or the standard way of doing things. In addition, regular sometimes implies everything is in order: at the deli stand the sandwiches were place in a regularly order. The newspapers were in a regular stack.
This passage is not talking about how the bread was stacked or if it was the right bread. Instead it's talking about how often the bread was placed on the table. Now be careful here. One of the things we tend to do at this point is to jump right to one ridiculously western question: how much is regular? What's implied in this question when we ask it is a sense of urgent productivity. We want to know the stats, take the score, hear what's expected of us? How much is enough? What does it mean to be regular in our time with God?
To avoid you jumping ahead for the answer, I want to first ask a couple of questions:
What is Bread? What is Table?
Bread is an incredible concept. Whoever found a way to make bread is my hero. I could live on Baguettes, cheese, and salami for pretty much the rest of my life. It's a thing of sustenance. It's what fills our guts and gives us the energy to move forward in a day's work.
And yet, according to the New Testament it's so much more. Bread is Jesus. He is the, "Bread of life (John 6:33,35,&48)." Listen to his own words spoken here: "I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh." John 6:51
We, then, read the Bible, not because any written word on a page is amazing, but because the Bible is about Jesus. Therefore, we read it as sustenance, hoping to be fill by Jesus as our bread.
Table is a bit more nuanced. The table is the place we go to be fed, get nourished, have a meal. So we pull ourselves up to the table when we sit and read scripture. What does this look like? Before we do that, what does this not look like?
Sometimes It's Easier to Figure Out What's Irregular
Irregularity is pretty easy to spot because it's a break from the routine. Sometimes it's easier to recognize what's out of place, than what's in place. Irregular implies something incongruent, mixed up, changed up. Irregularity is not conforming to something or not having a set formation or regular schedule.
A couple Nancy and I know recently returned from hiking the Annapurna Circuit in Katmandu, Nepal. Their trek was delayed a few days because the bus system was on strike and not on it's regular route or schedule. In fact, it was not running at all. Do you think they noticed? You bet they noticed, because they were stuck there and couldn't move.
What do you think happens to your spiritual life when your reading of the Bible is irregular? You are stunting your maturity. Your stunting your growth. Your missing out. Your not learning about Jesus or hearing him speak to your life. Irregularity means slow growth or no growth.
Q: Is Your Reading of the Bible Regular or Irregular?
Be honest when you ask this question. When Israel set their bread before God it was a matter of identity. Once the tabernacle was instituted, and unless they were in exile, they set the bread out regularly. It was part of who they were.
So what about you? Does regularly or irregularity describe your pattern for reading the Bible?
What To Do About It?
Here are a few suggestions to encourage regular interactions with the text:
1. Learn to read through the lens of historical context, cultural, and social context. It's what makes the books come alive. In the book Made to Stick the Heath brothers suggest this is what makes the ideas in the books become concrete.
2. Prepare your heart to hear more about who God is and what he wants from you. This protects us from a moralistic reading where we tend to look for 'to do' lists than truths. A prepared heart means we are less interested in 'how to be better person?' and more interested in what it means to be a son or daughter of God.
3. Schedule reading the text as the most important part of your day. I know the importance I place on things when I look at my schedule. Engaging a life with God by reading the story about him should be one of the most important pieces or our lives. Your schedule should reflect this.
4. Set your Bible out so it's part of your everyday life. Where do you put your Bible? Is it hidden so no one knows you have one? Is it out so that it's a part of your regular day, ready to be used throughout your regular routine?
5. Read throughout the day, in quick sperts. Meditate on passages. There are many times when you have a five minute break: between phone calls, standing in line, weighting for something to cook. Use those times to read and meditate on a passage of scripture.
6. Become passionate about reading the text. When your passionate about something your whole being is engaged. When your heart says Yes, I want to read scripture everything else follows. It becomes a delight. God changes your life through the text. You read and grow.
AB
*written by Abraham Bates - Photography by Abraham Bates - Copyright AbrahamBates.com
