Saturday, December 26, 2015

I've Been Lazy // Excerpts in Bible Studying

I've Been Lazy // Excerpts on Bible Study
Sorry for the silence here on the blog lately everyone! I've been nannying and babysitting like crazy, plus we've been gone the past three weekends in a row so you can only imagine how much time I've had free. Time it's self is something in essence I want to talk about today. The bounty and seemingly lack thereof it.

With the new year only a few weeks away now, I want to put forth extra effort than I have been for a few things. Primarily keeping up our little place here in the blogging world, and that includes switching things up a bit to fit this new pattern in my life I find myself in. It may not be perfect at first, but I know it can be definitely be better than it has been!

With that said, one of my main goals is to have a weekly "thoughts" post or Bible based study show up in whatever else we have go up during the week. This I've found in the past (when I've shared sermon notes, etc) to be extremely helpful in pressing myself in what I learn and actually to continue to do so. It's so super easy to run out of time (be those causes good or not) to actually sit down and do what is so crucial in our walk on this earth- study the precious words and instructions of our Father. 

Like Charles Spurgeon once said, "The most important daily habit we can possess is to remind ourselves of the gospel!

I know that when you don't have the word being constantly presented your day to day life, it becomes even more easy to let that passion slide. My goal with the hopes of sharing here more frequently, my personal studies and notes, is to have my readers hold me accountable. And to therefore give you all the very same encouragement in the end; push you closer to our Creator, to study His word, and to have His words be evermore present in one more area in your life so that the passion of sharing and knowing His hope He gives us would not be tainted.

So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. (Romans 10:17) I want your faith to grow! To not be dwindled by the busyness of life or as I said, the lack of it in your life. Faith comes by hearing the word of God (the Gospel!). I want you to hear it, read it, grasp it here. 

The last few months (end of summer through mid fall) my personal daily studies lacked so much I thought my passion for hearing Scripture and wanting to delve into it was lost forever. My drive was gone. Or so seemed to be, and somehow each day that I was "too busy" it got both easier and harder; in the way easier because I had no grounds to work from the day prior, it was easier to let another day go by; so I became uninspired most days. And harder because of that fact; a wall was being built. I just felt I had nothing to work from or towards for the longest time. I used to anticipate when a new teaching or sermon came my way and literally run to fetch my Bible, pen and pad, spending well over the amount of time I'd thought I'd use. But there was a wall that had been built and I felt as though my hands were bound at the same time when I wanted so desperately to tear it down.

It's not always easy to redirect yourself in stirring up a passion that was once there. The said passion had to be driven by something so once there is no drive, the passion and desire to rekindle it is gone.

So how do we get it back? 
How can we ever do something that will make sure that this never happens? The thing is, sometimes we rely on other people to motivate this passion. I know that its so very, very important to have people who are strong believers beside you. This was a big cause in my own wall that was built because we still have no church fellowship and it comes as no huge surprise that the time of my debacle and this fact line up. I was heartbroken about my dear group slitting up and wouldn't you know that I got busier with life at the exact same time. But let me say that with every excuse aside, no one should be in charge of or blamed for, our own spiritual growth besides ourselves!  

The only way I can describe my own situation is that I was plain lazy. I could have, but didn't. Should have, but did not.

There's always, always, a way you can move your day around to free up some time to read a section of Scripture and take notes on your study of it, etc. You have just have to start again. Begin by reading a chapter of Isiah, then a chunk of the Gospels, then Romans! It gets easier and easier to yearn for that time again. You'll wonder how you even got through days without it. 

How amazing it is that God Himself  would give us the strength we need to push past ourselves to give Him time! Oh how fickle we are, how absolutely ungrateful! And how humbling it is to know how much He cares enough for us that He'd give us the physical strength to do something that goes so far beyond to the spiritual. 

 But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in His law doth he meditate day and night. Psalms 1:2


Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against Thee. Psalms 119:11

I hope you'll be prodded to push past the walls that seem so impossible. To be inspired that you can reclaim your deep passion of understanding the word. I'm so looking forward to standing once again, stronger than ever in this part of my life and being able to share it along the way with to whom wherever my words may go. 


And let us consider one another, to provoke unto love and to good works.
Hebrews 10:24

Many, many blessings,
Cassie 
the elder sister & writer 

5 comments:

  1. Hi, Cassie. You are a great writer and you are right. I also wanted to note a few things. As much as its important reading the Bible, studying is sooo much more important. I'd suggest you pick a book, study its geography, history, culture, etc, and than the message and the emotions in that book would just come alive at you and you'd feel like its a wonderful novel and like you are actually living it. This makes Bible not a boring book but exciting. I have studied the book of Galatians for almost a year now. I studied its geography, people, culture, customs (of the people it was written to), situation as described in other places in the Bible (for this book in particular its the Acts). Tell you what, this book was such a blessing. As a struggled with clinical depression, I had to come back again and again to it like 100 times during the past year to reassure myself of God's love and the doctrine of faith alone. Guys, if you think that reading the Bible is boring, it probably is so study instead.
    So often we pick up a Bible like too holy of a book. Suddenly the emotions in there don't talk to us, the tears, don't bother us, like its a dead book because we allow it to be boring. Yet Søren Aabye Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher, who suffered through the loss of his wife and kids and suffered a lot in general, said that whenever his life got too boring (in general he found our moderns to be boring people), he'd pick up a Bible and read because the Bible was full of stories of truly courageous, wonderfully holy, truly sinful people who had real "actions in their life". When you are bored do you think: Scripture!! Nay, thou thinketh: Movie time!! I'd recommend you read a book called "Fear and trembling" that describes just how interesting simple Bible stories that we over look are.
    I can not let this slip my mind, ladies and gents. In the end, all your reading, studying, praying, etc, does NOT matter before God. Justification and salvation are SOLELY by faith (sola fide), "...for we hold that man is justified by faith, APART from works of the law"(Rom 3, ESV).

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    1. Hey Ed! Thanks very much!!
      Very true notes indeed!! I guess I could have also stated that in my direct post more so, but I know that much of the time when we write a post like this, the comments usually get equal attention, so thanks for stating it here!
      I think because many people have this thought in their heads (without even really knowing it even) that the Bible is OLD! Like much of it is not written for us today. How sad! All 66 books are a whole and perfect together, when we STUDY them as such, things become alive in new ways for us.
      And of course!! I couldn't agree more that researching the time periods of which certain books were written in etc, has the biggest benefit one can imagine! It does feel as though you're really there because you know what the people were actually facing, what their lives looked like; you can grasp concepts that would otherwise seem so distant.

      Blessings to you!
      Cassie

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  2. Love this post, Cassie! I've been lagging behind on my Bible study time for each day, and it's so important! You're right - once you get in that rhythm with the Lord, you'll begin to wonder how you managed without it!

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    1. Thank you Kalin! I'm blessed to know its what you needed to hear!

      The Lord is so amazing in that way; He keeps us afloat even when we are so much less then faithful.

      xx,
      Cassie
      the elder sister

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  3. Great post, Cassie! I wasn't faithful reading my Bible for awhile, and right before Christmas I knew what my New Year's resolution would be: read my Bible every day, and finish it in a year. So far I've done it.

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