What do you do every day? 

Probably lots of things: eat, sleep, brush your teeth, the list goes on. 

For more than two years now, I have journaled at least one page every day, with very few exceptions. 

It’s perhaps one of my biggest priorities. Every night, no matter how late, I write my page, including things like details about my day, things I’m thankful for, prayers I have, thoughts about areas I need to grow in, and plenty of other things. 

Every now and again, I’ll go back and read pages from my journal, remembering things I never would have otherwise and marveling about what God has done in my life. 

I know not everyone can consistently journal, but I would still recommend trying, or journaling sporadically. It’s been an incredible blessing to me. 

Maybe you’re like me, and you love to journal. Or maybe you have a streak on BeReal or some other app that you faithfully maintain, no matter what. Or maybe you make your bed every morning like clockwork.

But what about your Bible reading? 

This is something that recently slapped me in the face. 

Late nights would come, and I would settle in to journal, determined not to skip a day. Even if I actively dozed off while writing, which has happened, resulting in some very odd sentences, I would keep going until the page was complete. And then I would go to sleep. 

But on those late nights when I was half-asleep already, I wouldn’t read my Bible. 

Often enough, I made excuses like “well, I’m so tired already, I wouldn’t remember from it anyway”. And some of those nights, that may very well have been true.

But that wasn’t the problem. My habits revealed my disordered priorities. I was putting my journaling above my Bible reading. I was putting my sleep above my Bible reading—which means I was putting my own comfort above spending time with God. 

I had been told that on some nights, when you’re tired and you just don’t have the energy, it was fine to forgo Bible reading. 

But I don’t believe that anymore. Because when I choose not to read the Bible, I’m saying that something else is more important to me than God, and so far that thing I am idolizing has been me or my comfort every single time. 

God tells us to die to self and take up our crosses so that we may follow Him. But when I choose a few extra minutes of sleep over learning from Him and pleasing Him, I am doing just the opposite of what He commands. 

Of course, He also tells us to take care of our bodies because they are temples, and plenty of people point to this as the reason for things like choosing sleep over Bible reading, because we can do the Bible reading other times, and sleep is important to function. 

But what is a temple? It’s a place to sacrifice to God. So what good is it without the sacrifices? What good is a temple that isn’t used? Or, even worse, a temple that sacrifices the Bible to self, rather than self to God? So of course we ought to maintain and take care of our temples, but not at the expense of their function.

If you have already come to this conclusion and are faithfully prioritizing your time with God, then I applaud you and encourage you to keep going—it will bear fruit. 

If not, I encourage you to at least consider my words. Pray about them. Ask which course of action is most pleasing to God, and do that. 

I’ve started reading my Bible before I journal every night. Even when I’m dead tired. Because that habit, even if I don’t really remember what I read when I wake up, is pulling me closer to God. That time with Him is shaping who I am and how I see the world. 

So, will you join me?