Episode 1: When Reading the Bible is Hard: A Conversation with Kristen Wetherell

12 Jan

As the new year dawns, we’re delighted to welcome Kristen Wetherell onto the podcast for a candid conversation about when we find it hard to open our Bibles. Kristen is the author of Help for the Hungry Soul: Eight encouragements to grow your appetite for God’s Word. With Bible reading plans and New Year’s resolutions swirling around at this time of year, we benefitted so much from this conversation and we hope it will be an encouragement to you too.

This episode is sponsored by Crossway.
Crossway is a not-for-profit ministry, publishing gospel-centred, Bible-based content that honours our Saviour and serves his church. For information, click here.
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
Felicity: It is early January and we thought we might just kick off season ten in a slightly different way. As along with us, you might be thinking, well, what does it mean to get reading my Bible? As the new Year begins and we're full of resolutions and I don't know whether you ever feel anything like us, where you think just, I just don't know how or I kind of know I'm supposed to do it, but I just don't really have that much of a desire for it. What about when it's hard to read your Bible? Well, we invited our friend Kristen Wetherell to come and join us for a conversation about that very thing. What about when it's hard to read your Bible? This whole season is sponsored by Crossway, and Crossway have just published a book by Kristen which we have both enjoyed hugely. It's called Help for the Hungry Soul and we highly recommend it. And we really highly recommend this conversation with Kristen where she helps us identify some of the obstacles that stop us from getting our Bible open and then helps us to counter those hindrances and helps us to really get into that word again. By God's grace, we really hope you're going to enjoy this conversation. Join us now.
Sarah: Welcome to Two sisters and a cup of tea. My name is Sarah and I live in the UK. This is my sister Felicity and she lives in the States. And today, as we kick off this new season, we're delighted to welcome Kristen Wetherell onto the podcast. Today we're going to be thinking about what to do when Bible reading just feels hard. And Kristen, we're so looking forward to chatting with you on this welcome.
Kristen: Oh, my goodness. I'm delighted right now because your podcast is one of my absolute favorites and you're always with me in my earbuds in the morning when I'm exercising or whatever I'm doing. And so to hear that introduction and to be live with you right now, it's a delight. I'm just so delighted to be here. Thank you for having me.
Felicity: We're so delighted to have you, to welcome you into the sisterhood this morning. And Kristen is a dear friend of mine, actually lives just down the road, and she is someone who, as I pull up to her house, she puts the kettle on and is ready to make me a very happy cup of Earl Grey. She knows me well.
Sarah: Lovely. Is that your preference as well, Kristen?
Kristen: Oh, see, there's a bit of a story behind that. You might actually boot me off the podcast because I don't really love tea. I'll drink it, especially if it's know, am I uninvited? I'll drink it, especially in super cold weather if my throat feels dry or something. But I'm more of a coffee drinker just for first thing in the morning and then like, water throughout the day. So I'm really also glad that Felicity did not defriend me. When I offered her, like, a fruity tea the first time that she came over, she was like, no. She was so gracious about it. She was like, no, thank you. And so I have a box of Earl Grey that is basically labeled Felicity Carswell nice in my cabinet. And yes, I'm learning how she takes it, but it's a delight to serve it. Even if I don't join her in a cup of tea, I serve it well.
Sarah: I'm very grateful.
Felicity: Kristen, why don't you just tell us.
Felicity: A bit about yourself? Where are you? How do you spend your time?
Kristen: Yes. So near you guys. I'm in the Chicagoland area. We are at the Orchard in Arlington Heights, Illinois. My husband is the campus pastor there. And man, I've been there for eleven years. This week. I started working at the church, and that's how Brad and I met eleven years ago. We have three little kids. Joanna is six, John's three and a half, and little Lydia is ten months old. So we're kind of in an intense, but good intense season of life right now. And so life is very full in the best way, and we're just having to be discerning about how we spend the time. And I stay home with my kids and on the side I get to write, which I feel so privileged to get to do. I get to open God's word and with his help, apply it to different aspects of our lives. So I just love doing that.
Sarah: It's a, oh, that's wonderful. And we have been so blessed by your writing, Kristen, wonderfully. You've written a really helpful new book recently called Help for the Hungry Soul. And in it you're seeking to write for the person who feels just stuck and defeated with their Bible reading, when Bible reading just feels hard. And I wonder whether you can just tell us a bit about your journey to writing this book and how you've seen the Lord work in your own heart through those seasons.
Kristen: Yeah. Well, I was praying about a next book project and just asking the Lord, what is it, Lord, what is it that you would have me write? And I always pray that I don't want to write anything that he's not writing on my own heart that he's not teaching me. And one evening I was sitting on the couch thinking through these things, and my husband said, he just kind of looked at me and he asked a very simple question. He said, well, what do you want to write about? And I said, the Bible. It just came out of my mouth. And that's maybe an Od response because I always write about the Bible. I hope that all my writing is rooted in Scripture. But this felt different. I want to write about how good God's word is because I've tasted and seen it. I've experienced the goodness of his word. And at the root of that is a hungry soul, right? I'm hungry. God has made me hungry for himself. And there is no deep, true satisfaction apart from walking closely with him. And how does he feed us? It's through his words. So there's a personal account there. There's certainly an account from my small group at church and our church in general, even through Brad's pastoral ministry, just hearing a very consistent lament that people don't feel like they want to read their Bibles or that they're not doing it the way that they're supposed to. And so there's a lot of guilt associated with it, a lot of discouragement. I was recently, a couple of years ago, teaching at a women's retreat, and I just asked them to describe in one word, how would you describe your current appetite for God's word? And by far the most prevalent answer was the word hungry. And that can mean a few different things for different people, but I would say that's the theme, is hunger. Another word that comes to my mind is humility. Just coming to this place of realizing I'm helpless to desire this word apart from God stirring up the desire within me. I'm helpless to see his glory, see what he would want me to see in this word, apart from him opening my eyes. And so humility is a part of the story, too, is needing coming to the realization that I am incredibly needy when it comes to God's word and opening it and desiring it. And so that's kind of where the burden came from for writing the book. And I'm just so grateful for the gospel of hope that we have too, because Jesus came to us so that we can come to God and he gives us this word so that we can draw near to him. And I think that that's just a burden that a lot of people feel. Why do I not feel what I ought to for this book if it's so wonderful. So I'm glad that we're talking about this today.
Felicity: Well, I think it is. It feels like it's a heartbeat kind of book, like knowing you, but also just the way that you've written it. It really does meet a need. I love the way that you're speaking about having heard, evidently, people's struggles with this. It is a real thing, isn't it? And it's something that maybe we're. I think sometimes we're just a bit nervous to say it because it's just not the right thing to say as a Christian. So it's so helpful to have a book that's actually addressing these things. And in this book, you shed some light on some of the common hindrances, the things that get in the way of us getting the Bible open. Could you just walk us through some of those things? So as you've been in your own life and in others, you've kind of perceived what are the obstacles that get in the way of us getting the Bible open? Can you walk us through some of that?
Kristen: Happy to. Yes, happy to. Well, I've already touched on it, but the first one is desire. So the desires of my heart are not what they should be. When we go back to the beginning, which is always helpful to do. In the Bible story, we see this account of Adam and Eve, who were created to hunger for God and to walk with him and to listen to his words and to revere his words and to live by them. We see them turn away from God's words in favor of listening to a lie, listening to the serpent's words. And the result of that is that our desires are all messed up now. Sin has convoluted and distorted our desires. And so that's at the very heart of the problem. It's actually my heart. It's that I don't love what I ought to love. It's that the most beautiful and glorious reality in the whole universe, the Lord Jesus Christ, seems boring to me at times, and for some reason, my phone seems more brilliant and more enticing than him. Why is that? We can only trace it back to a problem with desire. So there's desire, and that affects a whole host of things. But another really prevalent obstacle is distraction. We live in an age of pervasive technology that has quite literally rewired our brains and made it very difficult for us to sit still for very long, to not be instantly gratified. And the work of the Lord in our hearts is an unseen and often slow, at least in our timetable process. And that doesn't jive with people who are wanting to be instantly gratified in a technological age. How many of us are distracted? We have good intentions. We come down the stairs in the morning ready to open our Bibles, and before you know it, you're thinking about the coffee that you might not have added to your grocery list, which brings you to your phone to add it to your grocery list, and then you're gone, right? Because you're on your phone and the day's begun. I tend to be a bit of a doer. I like to hit the ground running before God can get a word in sometimes. And distractions are really prevalent. So asking ourselves, where do I see this obstacle at work in my life? How am I distracted? Being able to pinpoint that and then put it off in favor of focus, which we'll touch on in a little bit. But distraction is big desire. Another one that comes to my mind is deceit. I think about the account in Matthew four where Jesus is led into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, and the devil spews one lie after another. He even spews the truth but twists it. So he uses God's word but twists it. And what is Jesus able to do is he's able to confront deceit and lies with the truth of God's word. And so how often do we believe lies? Well, I don't know my Bible well enough, so why even try? Or I don't have the proper amount of time to read my Bible, so I just won't do it. Or nothing seems to be happening through it, so I'm just going to give it some time or space and not continue or just be content with the apathy that I feel. Deceit is another huge hindrance, and that's why we need the word, right? We need God's word to counter the lies that we're so quick to believe.
Sarah: So helpful, Kristen, just so helpful to have those laid out. And I guess the thing is that these are things that we all feel on a daily basis, isn't it? Like these aren't kind of just kind of every now and then hindrances? It can be easy to feel these every day and therefore easy to feel just defeated. Before we even start with getting the Bible open, I wonder whether. So with those hindrances in view, whether you can just then give us some encouragement, how do we counter these hindrances and begin to find real joy in opening up the Bible for ourselves?
Kristen: Yeah, I would love to kind of just go through the three that we mentioned and think about, how can we overcome these hindrances with God's help. So if we're thinking about desire. So I don't actually want to read my Bible. The two words that come to my mind are that word, humility. So we come to the Lord and acknowledge that we are not feeling what we ought to feel and ask him to implant in us the hunger that we want to feel. Lord, my heart is very easily distracted. It is very easily drawn to other things. So would you change my heart and would you give me a deeper desire for your word? So I think we come to God in prayer and confession, and Then I think we take Scripture's word for it and come to the word anyway, no matter what we're feeling. So I'm thinking about Psalm one. There's this gracious cycle in Scripture where meditating on the word leads to delight. And then because we delight in the word, we want to meditate on it more. So Psalm one says, his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. So there's a connection there between delight and meditation. And so my encouragement would be, if we're feeling. I'm talking to myself here because I go through seasons of dryness where I'm not super enjoying the time that I'm spending in the word, but I have found, without fail, that over time, God is so faithful to use his word to stir the delight in me that I'm lacking. And so if the joy of abiding in the Lord through his word is lacking, come anyway. That would be my encouragement. Come anyway. Ask God, plead with him to give you that hunger that only he can give. And then over time, watch him do what only he can do. It may not be immediate. Sometimes it takes a season, right? But God is faithful to cause in our hearts that delight that only he can give. So that's desire.
Felicity: I love that you're highlighting that cycle, because I think so often it is, when it doesn't feel like it's happening, then it can be tempting to take yourself out of the cycle. So it's just really helpful to see. And it makes me think of Psalm 119 as well. And there are numerous places in the scriptures that we could go to to see that. And so that's just such a helpful reminder to come back to. First of all, come back to the Lord to ask him. But also, then that is the way the Lord works as we meditate on his word. Then the delight follows.
Kristen: Have you found that to be true in your own experience?
Felicity: Yes, I think that's right. And sometimes it can feel like, am I just going through the motions of reading the word? And how often when I'm feeling just a bit apathetic and it can feel like, oh, well, I guess I supposed to. I'm supposed to read my Bible, and that's just what I'm supposed to do. And I think sometimes I can feel like that's just been kind of handed down to me through just people telling me that's what I'm supposed to do. But I think what's really helpful in what you're saying is that that is what the Bible tells us to do. That is God's instruction, and that is true. That is how it works. And the dry patches do come, but also the Lord lifts us out of them as well.
Kristen: That's right.
Felicity: Often that hasn't been a kind of like, oh, I'm suddenly up high on the roller coaster. But gradually, slowly, my heart begins to warm towards the word.
Kristen: That's right. I would also say you gals talk about this a lot, but remembering the value and the place of corporate worship that God gives us, the local church to stir our hearts to worship him. That's the whole point, is that he would receive glory through the praise of his people, as well as walking with other believers, opening the word side by side with someone else. That can be so stirring for my heart to do something not only by myself, but also with God's people. I find that to be true in our small group as well. We discuss the sermon every week, so we're rereading the Scripture, meditating on it. There's so much delight there. And knowing that I'm not doing that alone and hearing the voices of other Christians speak into the Word. So I so appreciate that about this podcast, too. Being able to listen to and meditate on God's Word, hearing you sisters meditate on it, is such a help for me when my heart feels like it needs a bolster. So it's a good gift for sure.
Felicity: A sweet means of grace, isn't it? God's people, I love that.
Kristen: Yeah, that's right. I was also thinking a little bit about those of us who feel discouraged by distraction. How do I even get started? I feel like I'm in such a place that I've just given into distraction for so long. I've chosen Netflix or social media or good things, right? My children, my work, our schedules, over abiding with the Lord in his word. How do I get the joy of that back, practically. How do I get it back? And I do think that the answer is intentional habit. And that doesn't mean a total overhaul of all things overnight, because that's not realistic. But asking ourselves, what is one realistic change that I can make to cause God and his word to be the foremost habit of my day and not these other things. So maybe that means resolving to leave your phone in the other room. And if you usually try to read your Bible on your phone, just saying, I'm actually going to not do that anymore. It's too distracting. I'm going to go and pick up my paper Bible and read it that way. Or finding other times if it's not the morning for you, finding other times in your day to take up the word even for five minutes, small deposits add up. And I think we're so quick to discard the small deposits in favor of wanting the big deluges of scripture, which is great. I love that. And we should definitely pursue any opportunity to sit and linger in God's word. But small deposits add up too, and so we shouldn't discard them. We should take them, even if it's five minutes in the car line while you're waiting for your kids after school or the ten minute commute that you have turning on an audio Bible. Just anything to form a habit. So what's one thing that you might be able to do to put off distraction and to put on focus time in the word?
Felicity: It's not about the next. I feel like we say that quite a lot, Sarah, don't we? We say it to each other as well. If we're not going to get an hour today, that is more than okay, because God does work through his word. It's not dependent upon how long.
Sarah: Well, and I wonder also if we're finding it hard to open our Bibles, the chances are we're not hungering for an hour's worth of time because we're finding it hard to open in the first place, aren't we? So actually start with the small, just as we say with our children, start with the small, manageable times where we can open the word with them. We're not having hour long devotions there like we're five minutes around the table and enabling them to see that any portion of God's word is good so that we may taste and see that he is good. So yeah, that's just really helpful. Just kind of shifting our habits to see the value in those small little moments which inevitably, as the more you do that the more you hunger for more and the more you want to change that habit, maybe to grow longer and go deeper in the word. So, Krista, we're in a season where people are generally seeking to renew their Bible reading habits at the start of the new year. What do we do when it all feels a know, as we've been saying a bit more? Like I just said, I'm supposed to do this, or this is my New Year's resolution to do this. And what do we do? We've kind of touched on how to approach that when we're not feeling like it.
Kristen: But what about the guilt?
Sarah: The guilt that kind of can just sit on our shoulder and accompany us as we open up the pages and we just feel we're never getting it or we're never doing enough, or is this really going to work this time, this year? Is it going to be any different to all my kind of failed attempts in the past? I wonder whether you can just speak into people's kind of hearts in that.
Kristen: Yeah. So many of us feel that guilt. So many of us. I mean, that is a resounding chorus in our small group, and we're constantly having to remind each other, wait a second, what are we doing right now? We're in the word together right now. I think a good searching question is to ask ourselves, what am I feeling guilty about exactly? Am I feeling guilty about the why? So the heart behind it, the lack of desire. Because if it's that, there might be something there to take to the Lord and to say, God, I do confess that I don't want this time with you, and that isn't what I want. So, Lord, would you help me to make a step forward? Would you help me to grow in my hunger for you and to grow in that desire to be in your word? So am I feeling guilty about the why? Or am I feeling guilty about the how? Is it a sense of failure over not having some kind of ideal time, what we often call in the States quiet time? Because if that's where I'm feeling guilty, it could be false guilt. Because if we think about it, there is no command in the Bible about having a daily quiet time the way that we often think about it. And so if that's what you're feeling guilty about, it would be helpful for you to kind of break down that Christian cultural construct and rebuild it with a biblical construct, which comes back to the why. Right? It comes back to the heart. Love the Lord your God, Deuteronomy six with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. Jesus says, abide in me, and I in you. In Philippians, we read, hold fast to the word of life. These are heart postures of love and desire to walk with God and to know him and to be known by him. And so if what you're struggling with is a sense of failure over not having performed an idyllic quiet time, then you can be freed up from that. Actually, God wants your heart. And how that looks for you in the New Year might look different than it does for your sister in Christ. We already mentioned the value of the local church. The church is God's provision to feed your soul. And as we come together with our brothers and sisters to worship Christ and to be rooted in his word and reminded of the truth of his gospel, our souls are nourished for the week ahead. There's value there. We shouldn't discount that. Everything that you did not get to receive because quiet time. Air quotes. Because quiet time didn't go the way that you wanted it to this morning, it wasn't so quiet. Perhaps you get to receive it. Church, take it. It's a wonderful gift from God. But I think in this new year, we have a lot of good intentions. We realize perhaps, where some habit changes need to be made. And a good question would be, Lord, what am I feeling guilty about? Exactly. And then how would you call me to respond to this? Maybe for you it is trying to grab five or ten minutes of quiet before the day gets nuts in your house. Maybe you've been doing that and you're struggling with this sense of guilt that it's not enough or it's not correct. Maybe for you, it's trying something different and realizing, oh, my goodness, I can feed on God's word in numerous ways. A friend of mine does this. I can post scripture in my shower. I can put it in a gallon sized baggie and turn it upside down so that it doesn't get wet. And I can meditate on Scripture while I do something that I do every single day. I can memorize scripture with my kids for their Awana program, and we can think about it and talk about it. We can be creative in how we engage with the Lord through his word. And we're not limited to one constraint. What we often think of is quiet time. And so I hope that frees people up in this new year. It doesn't have to be that way. It can be that way if that feeds you. And that's a way that even Jesus went away to be. Alone with his father. And so we need those times. But that's not the only way. And so I think we can examine the how behind it, too.
Felicity: That's exactly the word that came to mind as you were speaking. It's just freedom. I think that is incredibly freeing, all that you've described there. And, yes, that our hearts really would feel free in that. I wonder, Christian, whether you might pray for us and our listeners in that.
Kristen: I would be delighted to. I'm just going to start my prayer with an invitation from the Lord in Isaiah 55, because it's so beautiful. And then I'll pray from there. The Lord says, come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. And he who has no money, come buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear and come to me here, that your soul may live. O God, we thank you that that is your invitation to us, that you, the God of all creation, holy, holy, holy, would invite us to draw near to you. Thank you that you invite us through your son JesuS, the one who loved you with his whole heart and soul and mind and strength, the one who makes it possible for us to draw near to you through your word. God, we thank you for waiting for us in your word every single day. And I pray that you would cultivate in our hearts a deeper delight in your words and a deeper delight in you, that we would want to know you, that we would draw near. And I pray practically, God, that you would show us what that looks like. You would give us not only the hunger, but the practical means to satisfy that hunger. On your word. I pray that you would bring people into our lives to speak wisdom. I pray that you would help us to put aside distraction and to choose the better portion, Lord, sitting at your feet, waiting on you, hearing from you and responding back to you, you are worthy of it, Lord, worthy of our whole hearts, our time, our love. And so we pray that you would change our hearts the way that only you can. And we pray all this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.
Felicity: Amen. Well, we are so grateful, Kristen. We love the book. Highly recommend it. Do grab a copy of Kristen's book. It's called Help for the Hungry Soul. It's published by Crossway, available wherever you buy your books, and we're excited to be getting into John's gospel next round two of John's Gospel.
Sarah: Of John's Gospel. Kristen, thank you so much. This has been wonderfully helpful for our own hearts and we pray it will help others as well. We just really appreciate you giving the time in your early morning to come and chat to us.
Kristen: Oh, it's my great pleasure. Thanks for having me. All right.
Sarah: And we'll see everyone next time at the beginning of John Round two.
Felicity: Goodbye.
Felicity: This season is sponsored by Crossway.