My relationship with God had become a little bit like doing the same exercise routine for too long.. it was not as effective as it once was. I had hit a plateau, and I wanted to get out of it, but my life path had changed so much that I could hardly even do the minimum (in my mind) to maintain. I had one baby, and then I was pregnant again and watching my own and another toddler, and then I had another newborn and we moved three times in four months. Then I found myself in a new apartment in Lancaster County, and a mom's group found me and took me in. We did a study of James, with Beth Moore teaching, and I challenged myself to get back into a devotion routine.
I did the homework, I read James, I wrote James, and I memorized James. I wrote it over and over, and repeated it over and over and it became like the back of my hand. (Now it is more like the back of my head (which I do not know as well), but that is what happens). But it is still in there and I know how it goes. I know it better than I've known any other book of the Bible. It is Holy Spirit empowering to memorize God's word.
I've read the Bible all my life. When I was in seventh grade, I read through the whole Bible in a year. I remember waking up at 6am and sitting in front of the heater vent in our living room after I turned the heat up to 65 (yes, you read that right.), and reading each morning.
As I went through high school I continued to read and do devotions and journal and pray some. Camp was a place where I really craved God's word and developed better understanding of God's love for me. In college, I continued to read and devour and consume God's word, but after I became pregnant with Naisa and she was born, it was much harder to get back into the word of God. I wasn't motivated. I wasn't focused. Even if I did read, it was just going through the motions, I wasn't absorbing anything. I knew I needed it, so I would keep trying, but there were long breaks in between, sometimes.
When we did the James study, I realized that writing the Scripture took it slower through my mind, and I listened and savored and absorbed more. I heard the sentences in my mind and understood their meaning. Having a teacher also increased the interest and having a group doing it with me increased the accountability.
So here I am in September, a couple months out from the James study, and I have decided that the best way for me to "get" God's word is to write it. Not necessarily memorize the whole book but maybe one chapter at a time. So right now I have started working through the books that Peter wrote. I am writing one chapter a day (and working on my handwriting. haha!) and I am listening through a series of exegetical sermons on First and Second Peter by Skip Heitzig. He does a significant job of researching and portraying the information in a way that makes it understandable, as well as entertaining, and it holds my attention. I find this kind of teaching helpful especially with certain verses in the Bible that no woman "likes" to read. "the weaker partner", "be submissive to your husbands". I have greater understanding of how my own relationship with my husband becomes easier and more loving when I submit my own authority to God and entrust my will to Him.
I want to encourage you, if you are reading this, to take on a discipline to write a book of the Bible. Pick a short one, maybe one that you don't like!, and write it, slowly, just a chapter a day, and find a good quality teacher who does an exegetical teaching of the book (like Skip Heitzig) and follow along with them for a little while. Even if you don't agree.
Blessings
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