Broken streaks and broken hearts

The Youversion Bible App is one of the best apps that I have on my phone.

It has helped me to build a habit of bible study, to learn a whole lot about my faith and to just enjoy spending time in God’s word.

There is a feature however that I am definitely not a fan of….

The Bible streaks.

It was designed as a way to allow you to build a habit of daily Bible Reading. Every day you read your bible, the number of streaks would increase. Initially the challenge was 21 days straight and then it became as long as you want. The more streaks you had, the more of a Bible scholar it seemed like you were.

I had a streak of 385 days. Imagine a whole year and some days of constantly reading my Bible or opening the app to read at least a verse in order to not break the streaks.

Then it happened. My streaks vanished. I don’t remember what happened. Did I forget to open the app, did my network fail me? I have no recollection. All I remember is the feeling of dejection. I had lost something so valuable and so precious to me.

The moment I realized I lost my streaks was in church. I wanted to brag to a friend that her streaks were nothing compared to mine. I nearly cried when I found out they were gone, I’m not kidding.

I gave up. Stopped opening the Bible app. It was of no use. What’s the point? How do I start building my streaks again.

Then I realized that my focus was WAY OFF.

I was so focused on the streaks that I forgot that the most important thing was to study the word and gain insight and spend time with God.

Truth be told, 380 streaks didn’t mean I read my Bible for 380 days straight. I just needed to open the app in order for the streaks to be counted. I was more concerned about losing my streaks than loosing an important connection with God.

So I stopped caring. I read my Bible with or without streaks. Got a hard copy Bible and studied it sometimes. Other times I would read the Youversion Bible offline (in that case, streaks wouldn’t be counted)

And I began to build a real habit of studying my Bible and learning Gods word. Not for the streaks, but for actual spiritual growth.

It’s been hard and I still get frustrated at times (I’ve lost my streaks an uncountable number of times since then) but I’m getting better at not being focused on streaks.

After all, God isn’t counting streaks. He’s concerned more about the quality of the kind of relationship I have with Him. I can spend quality time with God 3 times in a week and it would be better than meeting everyday and having very random and non meaningful interactions with Him.

So don’t get broken hearted if you lose your streaks.