Daily 5-Minute Bible Reading Made Easy with ScriptureSide

I almost deleted my Bible app. Then this happened.

 

I want to tell you about a small thing that happened to me last month, because I think it is the kind of small thing that other people who use Bible apps might want to know about, and because I think the design lesson is broader than the app.

 

I almost deleted my Bible app.

 

I have been reading a chapter a day for the last six months, give or take a few days here and there. Six months is the kind of streak that feels like a habit until it is not. I do not want to be one of those people who pretends I am more disciplined than I am. Six months is the kind of streak that gets broken by a hard week, and a hard week is exactly when the streak would be most useful, and exactly when you are least in the mood to read. The math does not work.

 

The hard week I had was the kind that most working adults have. I do not want to be dramatic about it. My father was in the hospital for three days, not seriously, but seriously enough. A work project I had been leading for nine months was canceled. I had a friend who needed a long phone call at 11pm. The week had that feeling, the feeling where you can tell the calendar is wrong and there are not actually seven days in it, there are four, and you are in the wrong one.

 

I missed four days of reading in a row.

 

I want to be honest about the order of operations. I missed Tuesday, then Wednesday, then I told myself I would do it Thursday, then I did not, then Friday I told myself I would do it on the weekend, and on the weekend I did not, and on Sunday I told myself I would start over on Monday. I did not start over on Monday either. By the next Tuesday I had not opened the app in nine days.

 

On Tuesday evening I was sitting at the kitchen table with a cold cup of coffee and the kind of feeling that I do not think has a name. The feeling is not guilt. Guilt is too moral. The feeling is more like the feeling you have when you have been driving for an hour and you realize you cannot remember the last thirty minutes of the drive. Something has been running without you in it. You are not the one who has been running. That is the feeling.

 

I opened the app. I did not open the app to read. I opened the app to delete it. I was going to delete the app because the streak was broken and the streak was the whole point, and if the streak was broken then the whole thing was broken, and if the whole thing was broken then I should just delete the app and start over next year. That is the kind of thing you tell yourself in a hard week.

 

I opened the app. The app asked me a question. It asked me how I was feeling. There were six options. The options were calm, tired, anxious, thankful, numb, and something else. I picked tired. The app did not congratulate me for opening it. The app did not show me a sad emoji for missing nine days. The app did not say welcome back. The app asked me how I was feeling, and the question was so small and so plain that I did not feel embarrassed answering it.

 

The app showed me a short passage. The passage was a Psalm. I am not going to tell you which Psalm because the Psalm is not the point. The point is that the app had remembered what I had read the last time I was here, which was nine days ago, and the app had remembered the answer I had given that day, which was anxious, and the app had not judged me for being away for nine days. The app just said, in the small language of an app, here is the same thing that was useful the last time you were here. Do you want it again. The button said yes. I pressed it. I read the Psalm. The Psalm was short. The Psalm was about being tired. I closed the app.

 

I did not delete the app.

 

I am not going to make this into a review of the app. The app is called Scriptureside, and it is at scriptureside.app if you want it, and the rest of this post is not about whether you should download it. The rest of this post is about what happened when I almost deleted an app, and what I learned about what Bible apps are for, and what I think the design of these apps is doing wrong when they are doing it wrong.

 

Here is what I think they are doing wrong. They are doing it wrong when they make the streak the point. The streak is a number. The number is going to break. The number is going to break in a hard week, and the hard week is when the number is most needed, and the hard week is when the number is hardest to defend. The number is the worst reason to read a chapter. The chapter is a better reason than the number. The Psalm you actually read on a Tuesday evening when your father is in the hospital is a better reason than the number, and the Psalm is not in the streak, and the Psalm is not in the app, and the Psalm is not the point, the Psalm is the point, and the app is the medium, and the medium got out of the way for nine days, and the medium came back, and the medium asked the right question.

 

The right question is not "did you read today." The right question is "how are you." The right question is the one the app asked me when I opened it, and the right question is the one the Psalm answers, and the right question is the one I forgot I was allowed to ask.

 

I am not going to pretend I am a better Christian because I opened the app that night. I am not going to pretend anything. I am going to say that I read a Psalm on a Tuesday evening when I almost deleted the app, and the Psalm was the right Psalm, and the app was the right app, and the day got a little better after that, and that is all I want to say.

 

If you are reading this and you have a Bible app on your phone, and you have been away from the app for a few days, and you are thinking about deleting the app, I would say do not delete the app. I would say open the app. I would say the app is not going to judge you. I would say the app is going to ask you a question, and the question is going to be small, and the answer is going to take a second, and the reading is going to take ten minutes, and the ten minutes are going to be the best ten minutes of the day. The rest of the day is going to be the same hard day. The rest of the day is not going to be fixed. The rest of the day is going to be what it is. The ten minutes are going to be the ten minutes.

 

I am not affiliated with the app. I am not a paid reviewer. I do not have a code or a discount or a referral link. I am just a person who almost deleted a Bible app and then did not, and the not-deleting was the most useful thing that happened to me that week. If that is useful to know, then this post was worth writing.

 

I almost deleted my Bible app. Then I did not. The reason I did not is that the app asked me a small question, and the question was the right question, and the reading that followed was the right reading, and the ten minutes that followed were the right ten minutes, and the day after that I missed again, and the day after that I came back, and the coming back is the practice, and the practice is the point.