Well, welcome back again to Struggling Well as we do another podcast and Sus, we're going into this week. What has been on my heart is the relationship we have with the word of God. you know, you know, my growing up years was in a very I'm going to use this word fundamentalist legalistic church that treated the word of God almost like a magic lamp. So that if you had your morning time of spending time in the word of God, your day would go well. if you didn't, your day would go poorly. And so it was almost like it became this checklist that you would check off when you did it and if you didn't do it, it wasn't good and God would be upset with you and God would be angry with you. I do believe the word of God's important. I do believe it's where we find our hope. But I found myself settling in recently in Matthew and the sermon on the mount, which I happen to believe and call the Christian manifesto. because I think it's Jesus telling us how we're supposed to live throughout the whole thing. But at the very end, he says this. Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock and the rains fell and the floods came and the whole the winds blew and beat on the house but it did not fall because it was founded on the rock. In other words, founded on the word of God. Then he says, "And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them, he'll be like the foolish man who built his house on sand. And when the rains fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against his house, it fell. and great was the fall of it. I can remember as a kid that there was a song that we used to do with motions.
Are you going to do it right now?
No, I'm not going to do it right now. I just was
There's no offense, but your vocal ability is somewhat limited.
Wow.
Wow. I know. I know. I've
a few weeks ago you called me looking at you with hairy eyeballs.
Okay.
So, now we're getting into my singing abilities.
It's okay.
Anyway, back to the text. Yes.
I think there's the key in that is not just hearing the word of God,
not just reading the word of God. God, but acting upon it. And that's what's so important when it comes to the word of God. I think God is thrilled every time we come to his word.
I'm not so sure that he's punishing us when we don't come to his word, which is kind of the way in which it was portrayed to me as a kid growing up. he's thrilled when I come because it's his word to us and it's one story from beginning to end and it has divisions because different authors wrote it, but and In the 130th Psalm, he says that God's love is steadfast. It's never ending. And I hope in his word,
and that's where I want to find my hope is in the word of God. And how I approach it.
We've been talking a lot about wells, the wells that we should be digging.
And we did a retreat this past weekend or well now it'll be I don't know whenever you hear this, it'll be many weekends ago, but and we were talking about the different wells that are important to thrive, not just survive. whether it be in your marriage or as an individual. And one of the wells is to ground yourself in God's word. Typically, what we do is when we're in trouble, we go to the word and we're shuffling around and we're panicking. We've got to find a verse to make us feel better. As opposed to grounding oursel in God's word, which to me means I've got to spend time in his word, not just reading a quick two-minute devotional, but actually reading it and learning about who God is. what happens is when, and I probably said this many times in the last year, when we are unfamiliar with God's word, we start to make up who God is, we make a theology based on what we think God should be. And then when things don't happen as we according to our theology should happen, then we blame God and people walk away from God, etc. But if we are grounded in his word, we know him and what he says about us and how he comes alongside of us.
Yeah. It's shifting my mindset from somehow making reading the word of God an obligation
to I want to find enjoyment in it. And again, I there are times for me when I've read and been struck by a particular verse or two and I've meditated and stayed on those verses for a long period of time. And then there have been other times when I've read a longer section of the word of God and I've got caught up in the story or the narrative that's being told. It's there's no one way to go about reading the word of God other than I'm not reading it for information's sake. I'm not reading it to prove a point of history, a point of science or anything else. I'm reading it because it's his living word to me and I want to know better how he relates to me and who he is
in what he wants from me.
And the word of God will transform and change us. one of the things that has been disheartening to me through my lifetime as a pastor's wife and being in Bible study with young women, and talking about you being on retreats and talking to people about the Lord is, please hear this in the context of I'm not trying to make a judgment here, but I think I've been kind of so disheartened by this is the illiteracy of that is present in so many of our churches. Meaning we go Sunday after Sunday, we hear excellent teaching. We go to Sunday schools, we hear again excellent teaching, but we don't sit with it and we walk away from it and then we don't remember what it says. We don't go back. Like I think on a Sunday when your pastor is speaking, you know, he hopefully has been inspired by the by the Holy Spirit. He's speaking from God's word. Don't just leave the Sunday morning message and then tuck it away, but go back over it and study it and sit with it and let it transform you because otherwise we tend to make up what we think God says.
Well, it's that sense that I come to the Bible for information and while I will get information, you use the word, I want the word of God to transform me and transform my heart.
And those are two different ways to approach the word of God. If I'm going to approach it from a standpoint of information only, then you're right. I don't remember many things that areformational things in my life that I've learned that because it doesn't sit. It doesn't register. And the other side to me, Suzi, is that it is God says his word is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword.
And in recent days, because of some of the struggles we are going through and have gone through, there are people have sent verses not to cure or to fix it, but just verses that they wanted to leave with us. And they're verses that I would have read at some point in time and had in the information there, but it at this time in my life, it is hit my life differently because there's something that needs to be transformed in my life. And so, it's that mindset of how do I approach the word of God? Is it where I find hope? Yeah, it is. You know, the events that have gone on worldwide that have been awful and just so troubling in the wars and the rumors of wars and all the other things that are there. I find so many people want to know does this mean we're in the end times? Does this mean that the tribulation is coming or we're in the tribulation? Whereas I'm going that's not the right even question in my mind. It's what does this mean for how I should live?
What does this mean for where I find my hope? And so I come to the word of God because God not God's going to give me a timetable, but I come to the word of God because I want to have a better understanding of how I am to live in the midst of this world.
Can I ask you a question? And I may be catching you off guard.
Well, that's all right.
And I do that all the time anyway.
I'll just close in prayer.
There you go. Amen. so as we're talking about getting in the word of God, what are some ways that are helpful for you that you could pass on?
You know, it used to be that when I was actively pastoring a local church, I had to get in the word of God every week because I had a sermon to come up.
And I don't have that any longer. So, So, I'll be reading and maybe I'll hear somebody maybe at church I'll hear a reference to a portion of the word of God that is just mentioned in passing because it fits within that sermon and something in my mind clicks and goes, "Oh, I need to I need to read more about that."
recently several people had mentioned to us Jehoshaphat's prayer in 2 Chronicles. and the prayer was something that then sparked in me the desire to go back and read the history of Israel in that time frame and in that setting. So, a lot of times it is for me is more of a spontaneous thing that I get prompted by a reference to a portion of the scripture that then causes me to want to go more. You're you have been in the past more deliberate in your approach on it. Like I think of that two plus years you spent in the Psalms.
and I'm wondering if there are people out there that are gonna go, oh, you need to have your daily quiet time, get out your daily bread, and you know that. And for some people, again, some people are really good with structure,
right?
And do really, really well with that, and that's awesome. I admire them. And there's other people that it's not as easy. Their brains just aren't wired that way. And what ends up happening is they feel more guilt about going to God than not. Now, I'm not trying to say those of you that have a consistent quiet time that there's something wrong with that. There's not. Nor am I saying you can hit or miss as you want. I don't think that either. for me, the way my brain works is I do better when I look at the whole as opposed to a couple of things at a time. Right?
So, right now I'm in Romans and it's like I've said many weeks, it's a hard tough book, but having to grapple with it and read around it and study it and then pay attention to it and then have it be my devotion to God that I respond to it.
Mhm.
but I don't know, you know, people always come up and say, "How do I have a good quiet time? How do I pray, etc." I mean, we're all struggling with that. And I don't know if there is one set way to do this.
Well, and I would say in response to that, there is not one set way, but I don't want whatever way choose to be my excuse not to come to God's word and see it as his revelation to me that should transform me in a way that causes me to live more like Christ.
I don't want to ever be my spontaneous approach to be an excuse not to go to the word of God.
And when we come to the word of God you know a lot of times you read something and you don't feel a warm fuzzy or you don't feel moved by it but that doesn't mean that God is not taking his word which never returns void and not doing something in your life in your mind. He's once it's planted in there, it's going to it's alive. And so it's not about having a quiet time that you walk away feeling something because our feelings certainly aren't reliable. But that by faith we spend time in God's word. By faith we trust that he's going to teach us through his Holy Spirit. And by faith we act upon what he's told us. And so just to put a cap on this, if that's raised questions for you that you would like further conversation about, you can reach us at info@tandemspirituality. com. Email us at that address and we'll either get back to you individually or we'll talk about it in a further way on another podcast. Have a great day.
Thanks for joining us. To learn more about the Struggling Well podcast, visit tandem spiritual quality. com.