Tag Archives: Reading God’s Word

A Journey with No Regrets… Finally!

Posted in Reflections From My Heart by
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I did it! I finished reading my bible cover to cover. I am going to selfishly relish in my accomplishment because I have to admit that I am authentically proud of myself. I remember sitting in my living room back in July 2013, starring at my bible wondering where to start that day. Up until then, I read my bible for random bible studies (which is very sporadic and not truly a full immersion into the richness of God’s Word), or I would grab a book based on what I felt like reading and read until I felt God speaking to me, but that July Saturday morning I prayed, “What message do you have for me today, Lord?”

The answer was a nudging to read the whole bible starting at Genesis. Isn’t it just like God to give you an answer to your prayer that is the exact opposite of what you were really looking for? I was hoping more for something like, “Read Philippians to experience more joy, or Ephesians to get armored up”, but cover to cover – all 66 BOOKS – even before starting felt very defeating. I started reading through Genesis more times than any other book of the bible and I really wasn’t that interested in reading about Adam and Eve AGAIN. (Isn’t it the petty things that hang us up sometimes?)

Since it was God talking, I had to entertain the offer. Then I thought to myself, “Well, I have the rest of my life to do this, so why not? If the rapture comes and I haven’t finished, I guess I’ll learn how it ends anyway.” – There you have it, my motivational self-talk.

How Do I Get Started?

Thinking, if I’m going to do this and succeed this time, I need how some accountability. I scanned my list of highly devoted bible reading friends and just didn’t think any of them would want this long responsibility. Besides, this is my journey with God, if I have another person to work with we could slow the progress.

Next I thought of picking up a 365 day reading plan, but knew that if I missed just one day you could forget it. If I ended up having a backlog of days to read and snowballed, I would get further discouraged and give up.

My third option was to take it one day at a time, one chapter at a time, at my own self pace. For accountability, I would create a blog, this blog, called Godly Girlfriends. Even though upon its start I had no followers, I was still accountable to reading and writing about my bible journey.

Perfect! I have a plan that “I think” will work.

Having found a path and putting a committed plan in place I started both reading the bible and my Godly Girlfriends blog. Here we are 4 years later and I have obeyed God and read my bible – the WHOLE bible. The daily blogging stopped somewhere in the middle of Deuteronomy because I feel a strong conviction that it was becoming more of a task box to be checked rather than an authentic, focused, deliberate walk with God. This made my blog posts less frequent and inconsistent, but my spiritual life took off.

God and I grew together day after day, week after week. As I closed the book after Revelation 22, I had a flashback over these past years. Was it perfect? NO. I missed many days, even weeks, when I would jump back into a local bible study or when I purposefully slow down my pace to piggy back on a more inductive study with Kay Arthur (through Daniel) or Dr. Vernon McGee (through all the minor profits).

What’s Next?

My original plan was to pick up my Chronological Study Bible and do it all over again chronologically, but God put a young lady in my life who is hungry to learn and grow and her youth group is reading through 2 Kings. So I have decided to take on that book with her, to be her accountability partner and see what God has to teach me back in Kings for the time being.

They say that the teacher is the best student and I have to say, taking my knowledge and teaching it to this young lady will definitely be just that – teaching me!

Thank you for your loyalty to keep following. I will continue to share my life with you and all that I am learning and growing in my life’s journey with my BFF Jesus.

20 He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.”
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
21 The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen. Revelation 22:20-21

The Key to Success

Posted in Daily Devotions: Chapter by Chapter by

Secret to Success

Today’s Devotional: Deuteronomy 17

A valuable chapter which deals with the regulations that would control a king. I do have a verse that jumped out at me and inspired this blog today. It’s verse 19, “It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the LORD his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees.”

It is written to instruct a king, but I see application for us. What if we made it personal and read it as, “God’s WORD is to be with YOU, and YOU are to read it all the days of YOUR life so that YOU may learn to revere the LORD your God and follow carefully all the words of His law and these decrees?”

God may have been giving advice to prepare a king for his role as a leader, but I also know that the bible is our source for preparation in our daily lives. When I imagine the roles and responsibilities of a king I think of all the decisions he has to make, the people who are depending on him to lead them and the great responsibility on his shoulders not only in his household, but in his kingdom.

How is that different from our lives? We have decisions to make, we have people who are depending on us to lead them and we have great responsibility on our shoulders in our households and our workplaces, neighborhoods and communities. Should we need God’s Word less than any king of any land?

I think verse 19 has a very important instruction for us and I’m blogging this to help us remain firm in whatever life is throwing at us right now. You’ll find what you need in His Word and He is all we need. That may sound cliche, but I’m not intending it to be. Read, pray, meditate on his word daily. God sums it up perfectly in Joshua 1:8, “Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.”

Wait On The LORD? What!

Posted in Daily Devotions: Chapter by Chapter by

Now

Today’s Devotion: Numbers 9

Oh. So. Cool!

The Israelities go to Moses asking if they can worship God and participate in the Passover. See here in verses 6-7, “But some of them could not celebrate the Passover on that day because they were ceremonially unclean on account of a dead body. So they came to Moses and Aaron that same day and said to Moses, ‘We have become unclean because of a dead body, but why should we be kept from presenting the LORD’s offering with the other Israelites at the appointed time?'”

Moses doesn’t say, “Oh, sure, of course. That should be fine. It doesn’t matter that you have been deemed unclean. Since you’re going to worship God, why wouldn’t God want that. Go ahead, worship away.” Instead Moses says, “8 Moses answered them, “Wait until I find out what the LORD commands concerning you.”

What?!

I manage people and occasionally someone on my team will ask me for something and I quickly weigh the positives and negatives. If the good outweigh the bad, I proceed to approve their request. If my team came to me and said I want to do something that will glorify God, I wouldn’t want to stand in the way of their relationship with God, an opportunity to serve Him or their own spiritual growth. The last thing I think I would do is tell them to wait until I hear from the LORD, so I could make a decision.

Today, God is reminding me (and you, if you’re reading this) that we DO need to wait on His decisions, answers and commands. Even those that seem ‘right’ at the time, still need God’s guidance. I’m honestly in awe of this today. Perhaps I have become very comfortable in speaking for God in certain circumstances and this is my remember to go to God first to hear what He wants to say, tells me how to lead and guides me in His ways – not mine.

I’m thankful today for this lesson and this perspective and I pray God will give us the ability to stop ourselves from speaking on behalf of the LORD, patience to wait for His answers and wisdom to know how to make Godly decisions, not our own decisions independent of Him.