Predictable, Perfunctory, or Profound?

The Christian life is a journey. We are not in the same place as our friends, family, or Christian brothers and sisters. But we are all on the journey, and we can all  benefit from asking this question of our Christian habits, our Christian practices, our Christian motion: Is this predictable, perfunctory, or profound?

It's really easy to let prayer, church, Bible-reading, and other Christian habits turn into superficial practices. I am reading the Bible online with a Bible-reading plan that is supposed to keep me on track. I like the Bible-reading plan on the YouVersion Bible app, and I've been reading the plan for two and a half years. I will be done reading the entire Bible by the beginning of 2021.

Sounds good, right?

Except....

I realized a couple of weeks ago that I was speeding through the Bible reading to get done. My goal was to finish for the day. I wanted to check it off my list. My reading of God's Word, the Word of God Himself, had turned into a perfunctory task to complete before my day began. Not the way to treat God's Holy Word.

Prayer is another of my daily Christian practices. I pray with my kids. I pray with my whole family. I pray with my husband. I pray by myself. We've been trying to encourage our kids to think about what they are praying. Not to simply repeat their typical, "Thank-you-God-for-the-food. Hope-we-have-a-wonderful-day." It's easy to let our prayers become predictable, repetitive, and thought-less. Not the way to talk to our Holy God, our Lord and Savior.


Church in the time of a pandemic is an interesting proposition. It isn't very predictable, is it? My husband purposefully keeps his preaching from being perfunctory, but as a listener, it is easy to let the words go into one ear and out the other. The same thing is true of Christian music, it's easy to let the music play away without listening to the depth of the words. Without engaging. Without processing.

I've been mulling my own Christian practices and habits lately (obviously). I've tried a few different things to wake myself up to the words of the songs, the sermons, and the Word. Sometimes, my techniques helped...sometimes they didn't. I found one thing that did make a difference, though.

Every.

Single.

Time.

That was prayer, asking God to make this experience profound. I just ask God to take my prayer time and make it meaningful. I pray that the online church service will change me to be more like Jesus. I pray that my reading of the Bible would affect my heart, my life. I lift up my desire for this experience to be more than predictable and perfunctory! I ask God to use my time to bring me profound change.

Try it. It's amazing.