I’ve talked about bible reading plan options, why bible study matters, how to create a bible study spot in your home – but what about when to QUIT a bible plan that isn’t serving you? Did you know that was even an option? Because it is! Believe it or not, bible reading plans that worked in one season might not work in another. Even plans we’ve loved in the past can stop being enjoyable or effective in the present. Here are three reasons to quit a Bible reading plan and what to do instead.
When You Find Yourself Dreading It
It may be time to quit your reading plan if all you feel is DREAD when you sit down to study. You might think it’s just the Bible in general, but I have found that changing my reading plan – maybe from chronological to a one-book deep dive – makes me enjoy it way more! You don’t have to always buckle down and dig through (though I do think, if you repeatedly skip “hard” books, you should dig in at least once so you experience them. Such as with Leviticus).
Dread can be a sign we need to change things up and remember the goal: communion with God.
When You’ve Fallen Horribly Behind
Another reason to quit your reading plan is when you’ve “fallen and can’t get up”! If you’re doing a plan that is too intense for your season, or you’re mentally unable to free yourself from the checklist, quitting it is probably the best idea. Choose something shorter or more manageable and return to the other plan in a future season.
Another tip would be to stop trying to catch up and just start wherever the plan has you TODAY. This is how I read through the Bible almost five times – I wouldn’t catch myself up if I missed a few days. And because I reread the whole bible year after year, I inevitably caught those passages in the future.
When You’re Missing the Point of It
The goal of bible study is to know God and experience Him. It’s to learn who He is and how He acts. It’s to learn how you can then translate those truths to today! If you get too caught up in the reading plan theory you can start to legalize what should be relationship. Free yourself to choose a bible study method that keeps relationship front and center. That might mean pausing an intense plan to do a study of Psalms (one of my go-to’s). Or maybe you switch from book by book to a broad chronological plan, but do it over two years instead of one. There is no timeline police with this! You really can read the Bible in whatever timeframe you want or have.
Keep the point central, free yourself to quit if you need to, and enjoy the Word for what it is!
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