If you've read much of my blog at all, you know that the love of my life is studying God's Word.
There's just nothing more special to me than a morning curled up in my big red chair, with a cup of iced coffee and almond milk with the Word spread open on my lap!
However, I've been in a season lately where it's been hard to get that face down time in the Word.
When MS is raging as it has been the past 4-5 weeks, the time that I so long for..the time that my soul craves, is elusive at best and close to impossible at worst.
But God.
Don't you love those two words? I think they're my favorite words in the Bible!
But God saw fit to give some wonderful Believers the ability to create the YouVersion app, available on iPhones and Droids as well.
(Goodness, now that I just looked for a hyperlink for YouVersion I see that they also have a pretty wonderful website! Click the link above to see it and learn more about their apps.)
While I've been down, and unable to study at the level I so enjoy, I have been blessed beyond measure by this app!
There is an area in it where you can choose a reading plan, and currently I'm going through the one by Professor Horner. It allows me the option of listening to the Word being read.
I never thought that I was much of an auditory learner, but I'm finding that I was wrong!
As much as I love the dramatized versions of the Bible, they sometimes make it hard for me to really drill down deeply in my thinking about the Word, but just listening to it as a straight read allows me to "see" the words on the pages of Scripture.
This particular reading plan takes me through several chapters a day, spreading wide across the Old and New Testaments.
My friend Pam Gillaspie is big on us realizing the need to go Deep and Wide as we study the Word, and Professor Horner's Reading Plan guides me just that way.
It even allows me to read along while I listen, which I love because although I'm not always looking at my phone, when I hear a verse that I want to remember I can grab it and use the highlighting feature to earmark that verse for me.
Get it, earmark? I know...I know....
But seriously...isn't that cool?
When highlighting verses, it even gives me the option to use different colors. Thus I have chosen pink for verses that I hear that I want to share with Brennan, blue for Caedmon, and yellow for verses that apply for all of us.
In one sitting, which equates to a day of the reading plan, I am currently hearing 1 chapter from each of these books:
Matthew
Genesis
Romans
1 Timothy
Job
Psalm
Proverbs
Joshua
Isaiah
Acts
A few days ago as I listened to Matthew chapter 12, I found that I finally "got" it! Who knew that I'd be able to understand a passage that has been hard for me, by hearing it?!
Can you tell I'm not a natural auditory learner? That's why I'm so surprised at the success and the fact that I am really loving learning the Word this way!
Initially I was so resistant to this plan because it skips from book to book and I don't get to hear one book in context all the way through, but I have found that what I'm missing in cohesiveness, I'm gaining in breadth.
I'm going to sign off with these two verses that really jumped out at me from the book of Job:
This is Job speaking to his "friends" about the LORD God...
Job 12:16
"With Him are strength and sound wisdom,
The misled and the misleader belong to Him."
(italicized emphasis mine)
Wow!
What if we remembered this truth when we're dealing with people that aren't walking the Godly path?
How might it impact the way that we interact with them?
Say it with me, "God is in control!"
And I love this verse...
Job 13:5
"O that you would be completely silent,
And that it would become your wisdom!"
I found this one to be quite profound, especially with regard to one of my children!
OK.....and with regard to me, too.
:)
Much love to you tonight,
Jes
