This has gone down since COVID-19 started and I have to say that I am surprised because I would have thought it would go up. I am talking about Bible reading and The American Bible Society releases its annual State of the Bible research today and because I work in Christian media, I got a preliminary report. It says that Scripture Engagement has gone down during the pandemic and they are seeing a direct correlation between Scripture Engagement and the traditional discipleship opportunities that the church gives us like small groups and Bible studies.

As I was thinking about this, it made me think of something that happened not too long ago. My son was in a baseball tournament and there was this play and the ball went to this kid out in the field. There were several possible plays he could have made and everyone started screaming and when I say everyone, I mean, EVERYONE. The parents of our team were screaming and the parents of the other team were screaming, and all the coaches and teammates were screaming. For anyone, this would be a point of anxiety but do you know what this kid did? He looked straight at his coach, zoned in on his coach's voice, and in spite of all the different voices clamoring for his attention, he threw that ball right where it was supposed to go and made the out. Here's why: He was listening to the right voice.

You and I have a lot of voices speaking a lot of things into our lives right now and if there has ever been a time to lean on scripture, it's now! There is one voice that we should be listening to and it's not the voice of your favorite news station or the voice of your favorite radio personality/commentator. It's not the voice of your best friend. It's God's voice. You won't cure it if you're not in the Bible. You have to train yourself to listen to that voice and when you do, you immediately recognize the voice and pay attention. You can focus and do what he exactly what he says.