How Important is the Word of God to You?

How important is the Word of God in your life? Keep in mind, I’m not asking how many minutes you spend in prayer every morning. The question isn’t how many years in a row have you been at church every Sunday morning? How important is the Bible in your daily life? 

As Christians, we cannot experience the relationship with Jesus we were created for if the Word of God is not a regular part of our lives. For the record, Mass every Sunday morning doesn’t equal a regular part of life. While that might be plenty of time for other activities and hobbies, you aren't spending enough time with God if you’re only reading or hearing the Bible at weekend Mass. This is something I can say from experience. 

As Catholics, time with our nose in a Bible has to be routine. The Word of God isn’t only knowledge we learn from. It’s also wisdom that we grow towards. Time alone with Scripture needs to be a part of daily life. Unfortunately, I think this is something we too easily forget as Catholics living in the United States in 2022. I know that I have.

If we don’t take the Word of God seriously, we can’t consider ourselves a disciple of Christ. If Jesus is our Lord and Savior, His Word needs to be something we crave. Scripture is just as essential as oxygen, water, and food for believers. While we may be able to live without a Bible study routine, we aren’t living in the proximity of God we’ve been created to experience. 

Until a couple of years ago, writing about how Sacred Scripture can be applied to daily life was how I paid my bills. Even after my quiet time with Jesus every morning, I was constantly in the Word of God throughout the day. I had to be reading the Bible, commentaries, and anything I could use to relate God’s Word to others. But, because of a few decisions I had made concerning my writing career, the Bible no longer needed to be as important. 

Sure, I continued to read a chapter or two every morning, but no intimacy was involved with the time I spent with God. It’s almost as if reading the Bible became something I did to keep from going to hell instead of growing closer to Jesus. 

I would have my Bible and prayer journal put away for the day within an hour or two of waking up. Out of sight and out of mind. I wanted to spend a few minutes with God every morning, but then I needed Him to stay out of my business the rest of the day. Not only did this negatively affect my own life, but it also changed how I started spending time with my daughter.

Usually, she would get home from daycare every afternoon, and two or three different translations of the Bible would be on the table sitting next to my desk. In addition, there would be commentaries, Bible and theology dictionaries, and I was always writing personal notes in a notebook, along with whatever article or blog post I was writing on my computer.

My daughter would have questions as soon as she got home from school. She wanted to know what I was studying in Scripture. What were the differences in vocabulary and terminology between different Bible translations? What notes had I written down, and what was the Holy Spirit telling me? Every day we would spend about half an hour or so discussing the Word of God. As the last school year ended, my daughter had a snack in front of the television as soon as she came home while I was wrapping up political zoom calls and interviews with people in the Middle East. No, Scripture isn’t what was being discussed. 

Lil v asked a question a while back that caused my soul to stir. “Daddy, why don’t you care about the Bible anymore?” That messed me up a little bit. I didn’t know what to tell her. “I don’t have time like I used to,” was how I responded. I don’t think I’ve ever felt as pathetic as I did sitting in my truck with her that day.

There’s been a lot of change in the previous two months, to say the least. I didn’t even give a two-week notice. That would have given me too much time to change my mind. 

I read something in the Gospel of St. Luke today that I must have read a hundred times in the past. The words jumped off the page when I read them this morning. 

Luke 5:1-2 “On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets.”

Keep in mind that these two verses come before Jesus has even called the disciples to follow Him. This was before thousands of people were fed with a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish. Scripture doesn’t tell us that people gathered to be healed or have an evil spirit cast out. Instead, the crowd pressed in on Jesus to hear God’s Word. 

This is the same Word that is more available to us today than it has ever been at any other time in history. I can think of countless churches that give Bibles away here in the United States. Bibles can be downloaded onto our phones and tablets. Most apps will even read the Bible to you if you don’t want to do it yourself. And yet, too many of us only make time for Scripture on Sunday morning. 

Life has been turned upside down for me these past few days. There’s been lots of prayer, conversations with mentors, and a ton of time with just myself, a Bible, and a notebook. I want to spend the rest of this post discussing a practical plan anyone can use to make the Bible a more important part of their daily lives. 

Making the Word of God a Priority

If the Bible is going to be important in our lives, we have to be willing to make it a priority. Be careful with this. I’m not saying there's no more watching television. This doesn’t mean you spend countless hours every day memorizing Scripture. What we do have to do is make spending time alone with God and His Word a priority.

Maybe this means it is something you do first thing every morning. This might work better doing it later at night once everything is quiet and you can have some peace. When to do this isn’t what’s important. What matters is that you do. 

The goal isn’t to limit how many verses or chapters you will read. Instead, focus on connecting with God, not a total word count. In my experience, I can digest what I’m studying better in smaller doses. I would much rather read only a handful of verses and feel a connection with Jesus through what I’m reading instead of setting out to read too much, and nothing penetrates my soul. 

Studying Instead of Reading

There is a huge difference between reading and studying. This simple practice has done more for my relationship with Jesus than anything else. Reading is something you do for entertainment. It’s a hobby, something to pass the time. On the other hand, studying is what you do when the content will change your life in one way or another. You read a novel. You study for a test.

Studying might not look the same for you as it does for me. This doesn’t make one of us right and the other wrong. It just means we absorb information differently. Whatever you need to do so the Word of God will stick with you and be fresh in your mind, that is how you study.

Over the past few months, there has been no studying Scripture for me. Instead, I would read the Bible as quickly as possible and then get on with the rest of my day. When I study, I’ll do almost as much writing as reading. I’ll have a Bible, commentaries, a notebook, index cards, pens, and highlighters. For the last six months, there have been very few times I’ve gone as far as writing a note in my Bible or underlining a word or verse. Within an hour after I’m finished, I’d be lucky to remember enough of what I’d read to carry on any kind of conversation. 

This directly ties in with making the Word of God a priority in our life. If we think we are going to sit down and read the Bible like a novel or even this blog post, odds are that God’s Word will not produce any kind of an effect in our lives. 

The Bible Is a Weapon

In his letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul gives us the Armor of God. We have the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. 

Out of six pieces of armor, only the Word of God is used to attack. Everything else is something we’re given for defense. If we’re not making God’s Word important in our lives, we’ll never be able to use it properly. Our heads will be full of Bible verses we’ve memorized, but our hearts and souls will be left with no way to fight the enemy.

Only once we have made the Word of God a priority will we be able to use it for taking enemy territory.