How I Connect with God's Word All Day
Hello and welcome back!
Over the past year or so, I've been making significant changes to the routines I have in place to better myself. One huge part of this routine change is spending more time with God. I love watching routine videos and reading posts about routines, but so many seem very unrealistic to me. Especially when I watch something about someone's Bible time. How do they have so much time to spend with their Bible every morning? How do they stay awake when they do it? How can people just read the Bible without any help from an outside resource? It was honestly a bit discouraging for me. But something that I realized was that most of these people were in a different stage of life than me and also just had a wildly different personality than I do. That makes a difference. So I've gone about experimenting for the last bit about how I can increase the quality of my time with God every day so that I'm learning and deepening my faith. And today I want to share that with you.
I connect with God's Word three times a day. I know that doing a devotional every morning is wildly popular in today's society but that wasn't cutting it for me. I needed and craved more than that. So what I've done is set up my time with God as I would set up my meals. I eat three meals a day and I connect with God's Word three times a day. I'm not sitting down and spending an hour three times a day in God's Word but I'm doing a little throughout the day which adds up. It also encourages and reminds me to be in conversation with God throughout the day as well as helps me achieve my goals as my mind is focused on the right things.
My Morning Bible Time
So the first way I connect with God's Word is through my morning Bible time. I was doing devotionals in the morning and they were good but I needed more than that. So I went online and found these awesome free Bible studies (or they seem to be free, the one I'm doing is). They go through a book of the Bible and it comes with a study guide that includes scripture, questions, and answers. For me, this is a great setup. Since I didn't want to buy an actual study book or print anything offline, I made my study with a notebook from Walmart.
I base my layout on the Write the Word devotional that one of my sweet friends gifted me. I format my pages pretty simply. I put the title of the study I'm doing at the top of the page along with a space for the date. Below that, I put the specific part and subcategory that I'm currently working on in the study (I just like being able to keep it organized this way). I then will put a space to write the scripture that needs to be read, followed by the question that will go along with it. I only do one question a day to not make it overwhelming for myself. I then have a space called "on my heart" which is a space for writing out a prayer. The prayer may be focused on the scripture and question or it may be on something completely different, it's literally for whatever is on my heart at that moment. Lastly, I have a space for my "word of the day" which oftentimes maybe a couple of words or a phrase but it's there. I like to have this to kind of reflect on the day ahead or the scripture. This word or phrase sort of sums up what I've learned or maybe my focus for the day.
So all I do every morning is sit down with my journal, Bible, and a couple of pens and go through this. It's just one question and a bit of scripture to chew on. I'm not someone at this point in my walk of faith that can just read scripture without a little push to critical thinking. These questions are perfect for that and I've seen a change in my faith as I've walked through this study. I will answer this question in the morning but I won't go back and check the study guide answer until that evening when I set up my study for the following day. This gives me time to think deeply about it and pray, which I think is beneficial. Then at night when I check the study guide, I'll write down in my journal anything that stood out that I want to include in my answer to remember.
My Working Bible Time
The next time during the day I connect was God's Word during my working block, which is normally around 2 pmish - 4:30 pmish. This is when my toddler goes to bed for his quiet time (which is still more naptime at the moment). During this time block is when I get the bulk of my housework done. To connect with God's Word at this point in the day is as simple as popping in my Airpods.
When I begin working, I will listen to a Christian podcast of some sort. Sometimes it may be a sermon from the church we watch online or it may be something else. As of lately, I've been listening to an episode of the Thankful Homemaker Podcast with Marci Ferrel. She is honestly an excellent resource for homemakers, wives, and mothers. She has a few series on her podcast. My favorite one so far has been one about the Spiritual disciplines. I'm currently listening to her series on the Sermon on the Mount where she is very slowly dissecting every verse of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. It's very insightful and she also has loads of great insight and resources she links. Normally an episode is around 30 to 40 minutes long so I will start my working block that way. Somedays I might listen to more than one episode, but I at least try to listen to one each day. I don't just listen to her Bible series either, I do listen to the rest of her podcast where she talks about homemaking, motherhood, marriage, planning, and productivity (and even more probably!) but it is all Christ-centered. All these episodes are focused on being a Christian woman.
I find that having this time during the day is the pick me up I need during the day. A lot of times when I get to my working block, I'm exhausted from the first part of the day and I want to sit down and read and take a nap (and sometimes I do). But I have work to get done and while I do it, I connect with God's Word and take the time to examine my heart. Even the other day as I was mopping the floor, I listened to one of the Thankful Homemaker's podcast episodes that convicted my heart. I'd been doing so many tasks and having so many interactions with both outward and inward grumbling. It was eye-opening and I do pray for God to show me the ways that I am doing wrong so we can work on them and He does! It was so insightful and I'm thankful for it. I feel like connecting with God's Word at this point in the day does help me refocus for the evening time.
My Evening Bible Time
The last time of day that I connect with God's Word is in the evening right before I go to bed. After my nighttime prayer, I climb into bed and then I will generally read a devotional of some kind. Right now, I'm working through a devotional that my mother-in-law gifted me called Every Day is Mother's Day and I'm enjoying it. It just has short writing, along with some scripture and a prayer. I don't want something too dense in the evenings because I'm exhausted by the time I crawl into bed and if it's too dense, there's a good chance I'm going to just fall asleep. Sometimes I do Bible studies on the YouVersion Bible app if there is something specific I want to learn about (for example, I did a study on lent during the Easter season) then I will use that. But it just depends. I will also use the Bible app to always read the verse of the day and I generally will read it in a couple of different versions. I find that this provides more insight.
The last thing I do is my scripture memory. I know that seems like a lot for bedtime, but trust me, it's really straightforward and only takes me a few minutes. Of course, it is going to depend on the person, but I am someone who has a pretty good memory so I can roll through this kind of thing quite easily. I use the app called Verses and it assists you in learning Bible verses. Lately, I've realized the importance of being able to remember scripture. When the enemy attacks, you have to have ammunition and as Christians, that ammunition is the Word of God. If we look around in our armory during a tough situation and we've only got the Lord's Prayer and a John 3:16, we aren't prepared enough. We have to give ourselves something to fight with which is why I've been taking scripture memory so seriously.
So this app provides you with activities that are going to help you remember scripture. For example, it has a fill in the blank option where it will delete some words out of the verses and you have to fill them in. I find this type of activity very helpful in actively learning scripture. I typically work on one verse a week and it can come from anywhere, maybe from my Bible study one morning or evening or maybe it was a verse of the day but I try to pick something that has spoken to me. Then what I do is I go back and glance at the citations for the verses I've already learned and I will quickly just say the full verses to myself then I will begin working on the current verse I'm trying to learn. This promotes maintenance and will help these verses be easier to recall. This really only takes me a few minutes and I've already memorized so much scripture. I'd also like to say that the Verses app is free but the only translation available in the free version is the KJV, but you can pay for more translations if you'd like.
That is it, my friends. This is how I connect with God throughout the day in my life as a homemaker, wife, and mother. I have found this to be so helpful to my walk with God and I hope that it could give you some encouragement to find time in your day to connect with Him more.
Until next time!
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