Written by Shelah, and posted on April 18, 2008. See the original post and comments here.
My dad falls asleep at church. He nods off in Sacrament Meeting, dozes in Gospel Doctrine, and likely snores through High Priests meeting too. I’ve heard him joke that if he’s ever called on while snoozing, he knows that he should answer, “pray and read the scriptures.”
I’ve been either a Sunday School or Relief Society teacher for most of my adulthood in the Church, and I try my best to avoid the “pray and read the scriptures” answer more than once a lesson. It’s not always easy, especially if I follow the manual. Part of it is because I want to get my classes thinking about the topic in ways they may have not considered before, and part of it is that I doubt that “pray and read the scriptures” is the panacea that many believe it to be. Well, at least the “read the scriptures” part.
When I first joined the Church, I couldn’t get enough of the Book of Mormon. I started early-morning seminary about two months after I was baptized. We kept track of our daily progress with a sticker chart, and I was determined to get through the whole year without missing a day. I read the entire Book of Mormon almost three times during the school year. It was brand-new to me, and I couldn’t get enough of it.
Over the years, the scriptures have lost their luster. It’s not that I don’t love them, or that I have a problem with the stories and doctrines contained in them. It doesn’t make a bit of difference to me and my testimony if every story in the Old Testament turns out to be a myth or if every story in the Book of Mormon turns out to be an inspired narrative from the mind of a religious genius. I’m just, well, just sort of bored by reading them every day.
Several of my friends decided to join in the Hinckley Challenge this winter, and I thought it just might kick-start my flagging attempts at scripture study. So far, I guess it’s working. For the first time in a couple of years, I’m in a good scripture reading habit. I get to the spot where I pick up my kids from school a few minutes earlier than I had been previously, sit in the car, and read a couple of chapters while I wait (if that sounds unconventional, I read while drying my hair every morning for four years in high school).
There have been times over the last couple of months where I’ve really gotten into the story. The themes of social justice in King Benjamin’s address in Mosiah had me trying to determine how a similar speech would be received in our nation. But most of the time, I feel like I’m reading just so I can cross it off my to-do list. I finished Helaman this week, and I’m excited for 3 Nephi, if just for the break from the endless war stories. It seems like all scripture is not created equal, and I’ve been in the Leviticus and Numbers of the Book of Mormon for the last few weeks.
I’ve heard so many anecdotes about how daily scripture reading makes the readers better people, makes their days go better (“I can definitely tell the difference on the days I don’t read my scriptures” kinds of stuff) or gives them inspiration in their daily lives. I just don’t see it. If anything, on the mornings when I sit down with the kids to read the scriptures instead of just hurrying them through family prayer on the way out the door, I’m more likely to be stressed about getting them to school on time, more likely to yell, more likely to let the kind of language kids shouldn’t hear slip from my lips. Does reading the scriptures every day make me a better, more Christlike person? Not in any way that I’ve been able to recognize (and I’ve been looking). Just reading daily doesn’t seem to carry the “magical” powers that some ascribe to it.
I’m sure that some of my problem is that reading the scriptures on my own doesn’t engage me intellectually the way it used to when it was new. I know the stories, which makes me more prone to skim over them, and therefore I miss the subtleties that might enrich a twelfth or twentieth reading. I loved most of my religion classes in college, but now that I’m (way) out of school, I lack the motivation to bring in extra sources and study the way I probably should.
If I could just not read, and not feel those nagging voices in my head (you know, the ones who answer “pray and read the scriptures” in every Relief Society lesson), then maybe I would stop. In some ways, it would be liberating to quit making the effort. But I keep hoping for the payoff, for the surge of inspiration when I need it, for the passage that speaks to my heart, for the benefit that comes from the act of devotion. In the meantime, I’ll do my best to read regularly, and reserve the right to be bored.
