There are seasons when life wearies us, when it seems like we're too tired and busy for any kind of meaningful engagement with our Bibles, such is the current situation for Elena, who writes us today. "Hello, Pastor John. I live alone. I work long weeks. I find it nearly impossible to keep up with my Bible reading.

Cooking, cleaning, exercising, running errands, getting food, shopping, on and on, and by the time I get home I'm exhausted. I schedule times to read my Bible, to pray, and to be alone with God, but I feel as if I'm only giving God 15 minutes of my day, and I don't want that.

But I have to pay the bills to live. I feel stuck. When I'm reading my Bible, I'm half asleep. The only time I get now is in the weekends, but that's not enough. In what practical ways can I beat back the busyness of my life to ensure that I make time for Him?" I hear Elena putting her finger on three things that are frustrating her time with God in the Word.

One is that she feels stuck. Second, she feels exhausted, like she's going to fall asleep when she's reading her Bible. And third, she's incredibly busy with many, many pressures pushing the Bible out to the edge of her life. Let me say a word about those. Just a word about being stuck.

I watch people get stuck in the snow outside my house. They live on a corner, so they have to stop and then pull out into the street. Some people sit there in the same place for 10 minutes. I'm looking out there, so okay, I'm just going to get out there and push them.

But they just spin, spin, and spin as though doing the same thing over and over and over again is going to get out of stuckness. Snow is part of the problem, but just doing the same thing over and over again is also part of the problem. So getting unstuck might require putting it in reverse, kind of counterintuitive back, forward, and rock that thing out of there.

Or shoveling, you get out, shovel the snow away from front of your drive wheels. Or you might ring the doorbell of the Pipers and say, "You got any men here?" Which has happened. My sons and I have pushed a lot of people out of the snow. So the point is getting stuck requires some sometimes counterintuitive new efforts.

So what might that be in relation to busyness and exhaustion? Elena lists cooking, cleaning, exercising, running errands, getting food, shopping. Now those sound to me like classic, good, valuable things that tend to fill up your life. And Jesus was in the house of a couple of women who were different in their response to these things.

You remember what I'm talking about, Luke 10, 40. Martha was distracted with much serving, and she went up to the Lord and said, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone?" And Elena says she lives alone. "Tell her then to help me." But the Lord answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things.

One thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken from her." Now I know Elena says, "Look, I got to pay my bills." That's what she says. But I think if Jesus visited her home and watched her schedule, he would probably point to some things and say, "No, that doesn't have to consume quite that much time.

No, you don't have to devote that much time and energy to that. One thing is needful. More needful than your pattern of cooking, more needful than your pattern of cleaning, more needful than your pattern of exercising, more needful than your pattern of errand running and shopping, it's just plain more needful." And in Luke 8, 14, Jesus warns about the way the Word is choked by ordinary good busyness, right?

He says, "And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear the Word, but as they go on their way, they're choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life." Cares of life, oh my, don't we all have them? And their fruit does not mature.

And then he reminds us, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God." So my encouragement is for Elena to sit down and maybe make a list of the way she's spending her life. She's already got it itemized in this question she sent to us, the details of her life that seem to be robbing her of what she really wants to do.

And she should ask about each one. Is it the way I do it the best way, and is it more important than spending time with God in His Word? Is there a way to readjust the time spent on these things to make time for the Word? And very specifically, I would say, maybe set your alarm 45 minutes earlier in the morning and take your usual shower, get dressed, put the Word of God before any busyness at all.

Don't leave the Word to fill the cracks. Force other things into the cracks. They will get done. You will pay your bills if you read your Bible, you will, I promise you. Closely related to this is weariness, especially if you get up 45 minutes earlier, right? She's probably shaking her head right now, saying, "Are you kidding me?

I'm already dead tired." Closely related is this issue of weariness, falling asleep when you read your Bible, and who hasn't done that? Three practical suggestions. One, go to bed earlier than you usually do at night in order to feel more rested, especially for the Word. You can force yourself to go shopping when you're tired.

You probably can't force yourself to stay awake when you're tired, but you can go shopping when you're tired. Second, in the morning, if you have to, go ahead and make your coffee and let that caffeine do its magic. I don't drink coffee, but I get what caffeine does. I can drink Coke and tea.

Third, I have done this hundreds of times. If your body insists on getting sleepy, take your Bible in your hand and get up out of your comfortable chair and walk around the room in circles reading your Bible. There's nothing sacred about sitting, and it's much harder to fall asleep while you're walking.

I did it just the other day. But perhaps more important than these nitty-gritty practical suggestions is the foundational experience of the Word of God is more precious than anything. Remind yourself of this by preaching Psalm 19.10 to yourself. Preach it to yourself. The ordinances of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and drippings from the honeycomb. So don't let gold and don't let food feel more valuable or more sweet than the Word of God. They're not. No, they are not. Great thoughts here, Pastor John.

Thank you, Elena. Thanks for the great question. And we have so many great questions from listeners like you, and because of it, we have more than 1,300 total episodes in our archive now. You can benefit and be blessed by those episodes by going to our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

Well, today we talked about Bible reading and the challenges of life, which leads to another question. At what point does our Bible neglect become sinful neglect? Question arrived from Germany. It's a good one. So on the table Wednesday when we return, I'm Tony Reinhart, your host. We'll see you then.