I'm sure you've noticed our propensity to name drop. "I shook hands with the President!" "I sat next to Aaron Rogers on the plane." "Channing Tatum smiled at me!" Having close encounters with famous people makes us look good; it makes us look like important insiders. But name dropping only works if you have a close brush with somebody well-known. If you say, "Pastor Brian shook my hand." You ain't goin' nowhere! Why? Pastor Brian doesn't throw touchdown passes on television every Sunday while tens of thousands watch from their stadium seats and millions more watch from their couches. I don't possess that kind of social currency. Aaron Rogers does. That's why telling somebody you sat next to Aaron Rogers on an airplane looks and sounds better than telling somebody you sat next to some pastor named 'Brian'.

If your brushes with greatness and, even more, the company you keep says something about your importance, what does it say that the God who created Aaron Rogers knows you, loves you very much, and lives inside you? "Channing Tatum smiled at me!" Big deal! I just spent time conversing with the God who created Channing Tatum!

Having close encounters with "people of significance" is nothing compared to knowing and being loved by the God who created them. 

I’ve been working my way through Rico Tice’s new book, Honest Evangelism. It’s been both encouraging and convicting. Rico is a pastor at a church in London and one of his primary responsibilities is evangelism. Yet he would be the first to admit evangelism doesn’t come easy for him. It doesn’t come easy for me either.

He writes this, “I want to be honest: if you tell non-Christians about Jesus, it will be painful.” That’s why I find evangelism difficult. I want to remain comfortable. Tice recounts a convicting story:

“A couple of years ago I visited Delhi Bible Institute in India. The students at this new college are being trained to take the message of Christ Jesus to areas where people have never heard it before. These guys keep a bag, ready packed, by the back door. That’s so that if people come in the front to kill them, they can grab it and run. I was talking to one of the staff there about the possibility of suffering and she said: ‘Of course there’ll be suffering. What do you expect?’ And the first graduate of Delhi Bible Institute got martyred within six weeks. He graduated, went up into the villages, preached about Christ, and got murdered. It wasn’t unexpected, and he did it anyway."

What I find inspiring about this story isn’t only that the students at Delhi Bible Institute face far worse threats than I do in evangelism; but that they seem to run towards the discomfort. They lean into the pain of evangelism. It’s like they’re proactively seeking it. They cause me to think: “How can I run towards discomfort today for the sake of communicating the gospel to someone who doesn’t know Jesus?"

Of course, the ultimate example of someone running towards discomfort, leaning into, and proactively seeking pain for the sake of evangelism is Jesus Christ himself. He left heaven, a perfect paradise with not the slightest bit of discomfort, came to earth and experienced this sin ravaged world. He then took my sin and its torturous consequences upon himself so that I could get what only he deserved: eternal life in the joyful presence of God. Therein lies our motivation to move towards discomfort for the cause of Christ. May God give us the courage to do so!                           

Over the years in pastoral ministry, I have been asked on countless occasions, “What do I do when I just don’t have a desire to read the Bible?” I understand the frustration. I’ve lived it. As a Christian, it feels unChristian to even be in that spot. You might think to yourself, “What’s wrong with me? If I’m a Christian, shouldn’t I always have a desire to read the Bible?” I hope the following will be an encouragement to you.

• Recognize the lack of desire to read the Bible is the work of Satan and the product of our fallen nature.

On the surface, this point may not seem very encouraging, but it should be. Let me explain. On our own, left to our own wills and desires, we will never want to read the Bible. Jesus believed in a demonic world. He called Satan the “prince of this world” (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11). Satan and his minions work ferociously to deceptively redirect our appetites toward other pursuits. A New Year’s resolution isn’t going to overpower him. Additionally, we aren't innately good. We are sinful. Therefore, the natural bent of our hearts is away from desire for God and his Word. So what difference does this make?
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Don’t be surprised by a lack of desire to read the Bible. In fact, expect it.

• Begin with prayer

Our fallen nature and the demonic air we breathe, pushes us away from engaging with our Bibles. Willpower won’t overcome it, so instead, I would suggest beginning with prayer. Talk to God. It doesn’t have to be a long prayer. Tell him about your lack of desire to read the Bible. Express your frustration over it. Tell him how you would like things to be. Admit your weakness to fix it on your own. Plead with him to conquer the spiritual forces of evil and the evil in your own heart so that even for a few minutes you’re able to crack the cover and read some of its life-giving words.

• Start small

Some people don’t read the Bible because their expectations are too high. They may have set a goal at the beginning of the year, and two weeks into it they’re behind and frustrated and give up. Setting the goal to read through the Bible in a year is noble, but it may not be realistic for the person who today is saying, “I don’t have a desire to read the Bible.” So set a realistic goal. Maybe 10 minutes a day is a good place to start.

• Capitalize on technology

Busyness is a problem for everybody, but it’s a lousy excuse for not reading the Bible. There are too many resources available to us today to use the “too busy” excuse. Use your smartphone, tablet, audio Bibles, and podcasts to help you engage with it each day. Skip the morning radio talk show and listen to the Bible instead. Taking the dog for a walk? Bring your smartphone and earbuds and listen to a sermon podcast or the Bible “on tape.” Fight for every minute of your day.

• Absence doesn’t make the heart grow fonder

A licentious man turned church leader by the name of Augustine (354-430 A.D.) in describing his lack of interest in the Bible once said, “I felt no need for the food that does not perish, not because I had had my fill of it, but because the more I was starved of it the less palatable it seemed” (Confessions, p. 55). Absence from the Bible will decrease your appetite for it. I have found the opposite also to be true: frequency with the Bible increases the appetite for it. It’s better to read 10 minutes a day every day than 70 minutes in one sitting once a week. Over time, you’ll find the latter option exponentially more difficult to do than the former.

One concluding thought: remember the Bible isn’t just a book. It’s a perfectly aligned extension of God himself. To read it, is to engage with the God who just gave you that last breath you breathed.