My streak has ended.

I had opened the Bible App for 328 days in a row, usually to do the Daily Refresh, and if not that, then to read several verses or chapters. I was already looking ahead to that magical number of 365, a year’s worth of reading Scripture completed. 

That all ended Friday night, while I was attending the Southern Christian Writers’ Conference, of all things. 

I was like a batter, seeing my homerun sailing over the center field fence, when my eye wasn’t even on the ball. 

It’s taken a few days to get up the gumption to write about, for I was extremely disappointed in myself. I felt like I’d lost the game, me and my team of one. All that keeping up with it just slipped away, like dishwater running out when you’ve not plugged the drain good and tight.

It was gone before I knew it.

Wouldn’t you think that being at such an event would propel me to read my Bible? And it’s just so easy now, with our phones and their high-powered capabilities. All I had to do was tap that little brown logo, and boom: the Word of God at my fingertips.

Wouldn’t you also think that, after doing the same thing for literally hundreds of days, it would be so easy to do just one more?

But you know what I did that evening, laid up in my hotel room?

Wicked wretch that I am, I had started scrolling TikTok, my nemesis, but also my friend, companion, distraction, comedian, and conscience. I was going to stay up and write, but then I started scrolling. I had not been so tempted in a month of Sundays, but there I was, left to my own devices, out of my routine. It was well after 1:00 am before I decided to give it up, when I made myself turn out the lamplight.

I was already home the next evening before it hit me. I opened the Bible App to find that my bubble had burst, that I’d fallen off the wagon, that I’d hit the ditch.

I was literally back to square one, with that tiny number “1” beside the lightning bolt in the upper right hand corner, mocking me, reminding me of my imperfection.

And it’s more than just losing the streak.

There are 1440 minutes in a day, 168 hours in a week, and 8760 hours in a year. When you take out time for sleeping, eating, working, and other necessities, what does that leave you with? Not a whole lot, it feels like, especially when you burn through three blessed hours of alone time by mindlessly scrolling.

Maybe it is time to delete TikTok again. I’ve written about it before in post aptly titled “Scrollin’.” Doing away with time-wasting apps always helps curb my appetite for watching ridiculous cat videos, finding new recipes, and seeking the next great hit of dopamine.

What a perfect name for that app: TikTok. The time “ticks” and “tocks” until you feel like you’ve aged two years in one night, leaving you with your contact lenses stuck to your eyeballs the next morning and a few more permanent lines on your turkey neck.

But while I was writing this post, someone shared a TikTok video with me of a children’s choir singing “Lord I Lift Your Name on High.” I watched the video to the end, and by the time the children’s voices blended together in a slightly imperfect, but raw and honest harmony, with tears in my eyes I couldn’t help but raise my hands in the air and sing along with them.

How could I delete something that can be used to share the positives of the world? We so desperately need a laugh and a smile and a praise every day. 

Streaks of joy need to be commonplace in all of our lives, and if the good Lord can help me with that, even through TikTok, then who am I to spoil the fun by deleting it?

So I will leave it, for now. I will watch my beloved capybara videos for no more than ten minutes at a time. And if any good friends want to send me more videos of children singing to the Lord, by all means, share away.

As for the Bible app, Sweet Husband’s calm and wise words speak the truth: “Well, now you can start another streak.”

I’m on Day 1.