Have you ever tried to establish a regular habit of reading the Bible and praying?

I understand how difficult it can be to establish that habit. I know what it’s like to get out of bed in the morning and just not be “feeling it” at all.

It’s kind of like when you start your exercise routine—for those of you who exercise regularly. When you first begin your routine—especially if your routine is in the morning—you feel unbelievably sluggish.

Every part of your body feels like it weighs three times as much as it actually does. Every movement is a struggle. And it takes a little bit of mental fortitude to get past that.

But once you push past that initial sluggishness and get warmed up and get into your routine, how do you begin to feel? If you’re anything like me, you feel wonderful.

A new energy and a new life has somehow come into your body. And you might think to yourself, “This is great. Why would I ever not want to exercise?”

And likewise, when we approach prayer and Bible reading, we usually feel sluggish at first. There’s something within us that’s surprisingly resistant to doing those things.

And yet, after we do them, we wonder, “Why in the world was that so hard? Why the sluggishness? Why the hesitancy?” How easily we forget how life-giving the spiritual disciplines are!

To be honest, I think that’s why a lot of Christians are so weak and anemic. They’ve never learned to push through the initial sluggishness they feel and lay hold of Christ on a daily basis.

Let me encourage you in the strongest possible terms to begin doing that—even if it’s just for 10 focused minutes per day. See what God does. See how he uses that time.

A spiritual giant named George Mueller once said that “the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day is to have my soul happy in the Lord.”

Are you making that your “great and primary business”?