Index Cards

When I first started trying to memorize Scripture I used index cards.

The great thing about these cards is you can write the verse you want to learn on a card and carry it around with you so you can look at it throughout the day.

You can also tape a copy of it to the bathroom mirror, the edge of your computer monitor, or some other handy place where you will see it.

The more you read it and look at it the more familiar it will be.

This makes it easier to learn and memorize.

 

 

You might also want to date the cards, jot down on the back of the card anything you come across in your reading or as you go about your day that speaks to you about the verse or shows the verse to be true.

You can also write down prayers about the verse – prayers to better live out the verse, for wisdom to obey it, and/or whatever else is appropriate for that verse.

 

Once you are familiar with the verse and ready to move on to the next verse, you can file it and save it for later.

After a while, you can pull out the cards and read them in the order you wrote them.

You might be surprised to see the story they tell and how they show that God was with you all along, guiding you in that season.

 

If you are trying to memorize Scripture I hope you will try index cards and see if they work for you!

 

 

Want to know more about how to pray Bible verses? Check out my post, Praying Scripture

 

 

 

Category: God, Journaling, Life, Scripture Study, Uncategorized | LEAVE A COMMENT

She’s My Honeybunch

She’s 92 and likes to call me Honeybunch.

Seeing her walk in my office always makes me smile.

She’s been getting a little slower the last few months but she’s still going.

It tickles me that the first time she brought me a box of candy for Christmas she apologized for not bringing me her usual buttermilk pie, stating, “Now that I’m 90, my hips just don’t like standing the way they used to.”

 

What seems like such a little thing as giving someone candy is actually something huge in disguise.

She is not just trying to soothe my sweet tooth. She is showing me she cares about me.
By giving me that candy she is telling me I matter to her. I am important in her eyes.

 

She’s done other things for me, too.

Phone calls now and then just to say hi.

Cards mailed to my house that tell me she appreciates me.

Short visits to my office for no other reason than to check on me and see how I am.

All these seemingly small things are really big things because they are her way of showing the love of Christ to me just because she can.

 

I pray I’m reaching out to others so that someday when I’m slowed by age someone will look at me and appreciate the way I’ve sown love into their life the way she’s sowing love into mine.

 

She’s an inspiration and a shining example of how to love others – humbly, generously, and without any expectation of anything in return.

Just spilling the over-pouring of Christ’s love for her onto others.

I pray I will love Jesus enough that my cup, too, will overflow on to others and they will see the love Christ has for them through me.

Just like I see it through my Honeybunch.

 

 

 

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I Surrender All

There’s an old hymn from the 1890s titled “I Surrender All”.

It is a beautiful song and one of my favorites.

Part of the chorus says, “All to Thee, My Blessed Savior, I surrender all.”

 

I heard and sang that song for years without really understanding what it meant.

I knew what surrender was.

I knew I was committed to Jesus and to living a life that pleased Him.

But, deep down, I was still hanging onto things.

Things I hadn’t given Him yet.

Things I didn’t want to give Him.

Things I didn’t realize I needed to give Him.

 

Then I heard the words no one ever wants to hear, “You have cancer,”

Believe me when I say that will make you think about things you never thought about.

It will also make you look at a lot of things a lot differently.

 

It was like a light bulb went off in my head and I realized there were things I was holding on to that I didn’t know were there.

Unforgiveness. Frustration. Disappointment.

 

The only thing I could do about any of it was to give it to Christ.

Not in some, “Hey this is bothering me” way.

In a deep, honest, get it all out into the open kind of way.

Complete honesty and deep reflection.

Admitting my part in it.

 

It wasn’t easy.

I ugly-cried for days.

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Category: Faith, Jesus, Life, Trust | LEAVE A COMMENT

Filtering Through Pain

One of the hardest things I’ve had to learn is how to filter my pain through truth instead of filtering truth through my pain.

See, as humans when we’re hurting we often let our pain color our perception of things, people, and actions around us.

We don’t do it on purpose.

It’s that the pain is there and present and in the forefront of our minds so we tend to lead with that and to perceive things from that perspective.

Whether we’ve been disrespected, lied to, betrayed, stolen from, or experienced any other kind of pain, we tend to see others’ actions as potential for that event to be happening again, even when it’s not.

We assume (sometimes without realizing it) that because a person from our past did us wrong this person will, too.

Unfortunately, when we’re expecting and looking for something we tend to see it, whether it’s there or not.

 

God calls us to a higher standard than that.

Instead of filtering our life experiences through our pain, He calls us to filter them through His Word and Truth.

Regardless of how we feel or what we have experienced, we have to put the truth of Scripture first and foremost in our minds and operate according to it and what it says.

 

That can be hard.

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Psalm 63:6

I often wake up at least twice a night.

I used to either get up, get a drink of water, and walk through the house wondering why I was awake, or else lie there and grumble to myself about being awake when all I wanted to do was sleep.

Then I came across Psalm 63:6:

On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. (NIV)

I realized instead of being in a foul mood about being awake I could talk to the Lord about things on my mind, or pray about/review Scripture or sermons I’d recently heard..

As I began to do this, my attitude began to change.

I began to look forward to waking up in the middle of the night and having these quiet moments with the Lord.

My sleep began to improve.

i began to wake up more rested than before.

Best of all, I wake up with my mind more focused on the Lord than it has ever been.

 

What I thought was a problem and inconvenience turned into one of the sweetest and best parts of not just my day but my faith walk.

I still have times when I wake up grumpy because I’m awake in the middle of the night, but the moment I look to God and begin talking to Him, the bad mood leaves and peace washes over me.

I relax and feel so much better.

 

If you wake up in the middle of the night I hope you will try this and see how much it can improve your mood, your faith walk, and even your life.

Let me know how it goes.

 

My eyes stay open through the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promises .Psalm 119:148 (NIV)

 

I previously wrote a longer version of this post. You can find it here: Praying In the Night.

I wrote today’s post discussing it again because it is an important topic and it is good to occasionally have reminders.

 

 

Category: God, Life, Prayer, Scripture Study | LEAVE A COMMENT

Rationalizing

Rationalize -to attempt to explain or justify one’s own, or another person’s, behavior or attitude with logical, plausible reasons, even if the reasons are not true or appropriate. -Google dictionary

 

Rationalizing – we’ve all done it.

We’ve explained things away – also called making excuses, for our bad or improper behavior.

We make up reasons and twist words and phrases to make it sound like what we are doing or thinking is okay, even though it isn’t.

It makes us feel better about ourselves and feel like maybe, just maybe, our choice is better when we already know it isn’t.

 

Someone else used this tactic – the enemy.

In the Garden of Eden, when the serpent tempted Eve with the fruit, she knew she wasn’t supposed to eat it.

The enemy, in the form of the serpent, didn’t say, “hey, eat this.”.

Instead, he was sly about it.

Yes, he did call into question whether God really said what Eve knew He said.

But, then he started talking and explaining why things wouldn’t turn out as bad as God had said they would.

He also explained why there were things to be gained by doing it; and why it was okay to do what she wanted instead of what God had said.

 

Unfortunately, Eve gave in to the temptation of the lies and believed him.

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Category: God, Life, Submission, Truth | LEAVE A COMMENT

Memorizing Scripture

We live in a society where Scripture (the Bible) is easily accessible.

There are several websites that have the entire Bible available to read and search.

Stores everywhere sell copies.

There are tons of Bible Study books, commentaries, and devotionals available.

We even have apps for our phone.

 

If it is so accessible, then why is it so important to memorize Scripture?

There are several reasons.

 

The Bible tells us to.

Psalm 119:11 says, “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.”

To hide something in our heart means to learn it in the deepest part of us so that it becomes part of who we are.

More than facts, it is deep knowledge on the most intimate level.

When we have Scripture in us, it shapes how and what we think and do.

If it is in us, the Holy Spirit can remind us of it when we need it, like when we are witnessing to someone or when we are dealing with a situation.

This helps us know what we should and shouldn’t do as we walk through our day so that we can live a life honoring to God.

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Category: God, Life, Obedience, Scripture Study | LEAVE A COMMENT

Idols

There are a lot of talent shows on t.v. these days.

Some even encourage you to try out and see if you’re the next Idol.

 

Did you get that?

Idol.

 

Throughout the Bible, God has shown His displeasure with idols in very clear ways.

In Exodus 20:3-6 God specifically says we are not to have any type of idol. We are not to make one in any shape. We are not to bow down to anything or to worship anything other than Him.

He goes on to tell us He is a jealous God and that He will severely punish those who make these choices.

 

God then shows He means this in Exodus 32.

In that passage we read about how angry God was the people had made a golden calf while they were waiting for Moses to return from visiting Mt. Sinai.

He responded by sending a plague on them as punishment (verse 35).

 

The subject of idols is also covered in the New Testament.

The book of 1 John closes with this warning –

Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.

 

in 1 Corinthians 10:14, Paul specifically tells us to flee from idolatry*.

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Proverbs 15:1

A gentle answer turns away wrath,
    but a harsh word stirs up anger. Proverbs 15:1 (NIV)

 

When someone says something harsh to us we have a choice.

We can say something back to them just as harsh.

Or, we can cover over their harshness with a big dose of love.

 

When we answer softly and kindly it deflects their anger from us and preserves our peace.

If we answer harshly we are accepting their anger and embracing it as our own.

This causes us harm.

 

As Christians we are called to love our neighbors as ourselves, setting the example and showing Christ’s love to others at every opportunity.

We can’t do that if we are embracing anger instead of kindness.

 

We don’t always know why someone is angry.

Sometimes their anger has nothing to do with us.

That doesn’t matter.

What matters is how we respond to them.

 

This world is full of anger and harshness.

Let’s be the ones to respond with kindness and love at every turn.

We might not be able to stop someone’s anger, but we can meet it with soft words and kindness.

In doing so, we begin to heal the hurts we see and to spread the love of the Father to those around us.

 

That’s a pretty great response.

 

 

 

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins .1 Peter 4:8 (NIV)

 

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Matthew 22:37-39 (NIV)

 

 

 

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Psalm 46:10

He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.” Psalm 46:10 (NIV)

 

I’ve always looked at this verse in light of how it helps me.

I’ve even quoted only half the verse, doing so from a selfish perspective.

 

I’ve often referred to this verse by saying, “if you’re feeling stressed or out of sorts go sit quietly with the Lord and He’ll calm you.”

While that’s true, it’s not quite the point of this verse.

You have to add in the second half of the verse to get the true meaning.

 

The point of this verse is that because He is God He will be exalted.

Because of this, we should be still/quiet, know/realize He is the Creator, and act accordingly.

 

Sitting before God is good and it does calm us.

But it only brings us peace if we do it with the right understanding of who He is and how far above us He really is.

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