8 Tips for Easier Bible Reading

If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. James 1:5

God wants you to have his wisdom. In fact, there's no one who wants it more for you than He does.

Reading the Bible can be hard, especially if it's new to you. I'll never forget the first time I walked into a Starbucks. I wanted to try the coffee and see what everyone was talking about, but it felt like I was in another world. The menu was filled with new words like Frappuccino, Macchiato, and Mochas. The customers seemed to speak in a different language and say things like, "I'll take a Venti Dry Cappuccino, with a double shot."

Huh? 

I felt insecure - like I didn't belong somehow and might say the wrong thing to the barista (aka coffee girl). "Um, this is my first time here. Can I have a medium coffee please?"

Reading the Bible may at first make you feel uncomfortable, but God doesn't want you being a stranger in his word. He wants you to get cozy, settle in and find your spiritual place in him. I don't want you feeling like an outsider either, so here are the Bible reading tips I promised you in yesterday's post,  Book of Love:

1.  Before you do anything, pray! Ask God to give you spiritual understanding so that you
can comprehend what you're about to read. He's generous and gives to all without finding fault.

2.  Make sure you have a version that's appropriate for where you are spiritually. If you're new to reading, for God's sake, don't start out in the King James Version. Go easy on yourself and get a New Living Translation (NLT), a version written in every day language. A Bible with a study guide, such as the Life Application Bible, is even better because it has all sorts of handy explanations at the bottom of the pages.

3.  Set a timer and start with a small passage or even just one sentence of scripture. Set your timer for ten minutes and just read, while asking God for understanding. He'll give it to you and it'll get easier with practice.

4.  Many Bibles have a dictionary or concordance at the end of it. You can look up words or topics that might be relevant to you, words like "forgiveness" or "temptation." Use that to jump start your reading.

5.  When you read, try to put yourself into the story or passage and ask yourself questions. If you're uncertain about what you're reading, try to read several sentences below or above the passage to see if you can gain more clarity.

6.  Invite a friend to read with you. Sometimes having another person to hash out a passage can give you greater spiritual insight.

7.  Stick with it and be patient. Sometimes you won't have understanding right away; this happened to me often when I first started. But the great thing would be that I'd be driving in my car or at work later in the week, and a situation would arise, or a song would come on the radio and all of a sudden, I'd KNOW. I'd understand and it'd be like a great surprise from God.
                                          His timing is always perfect!

8.  End in Praise! Start in prayer and end in praise, always thanking God for whatever He gives you.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.
                                                                                                                                   Psalm 100:4-5

If you have any questions, just leave a comment and I'd be happy to help you.

                                                                                                  God is faithful and wonderful!

Book of Love

Not to us, Lord, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness.
                                                                                                         Psalm 115:1

My grandpa Haines was a great man. By that, I don't mean he was a man of stature, or that he held a position of national importance. He was a great man because he loved his people. He loved his parents and helped care for them in their old age, and he loved his children and grandchildren. He died several years ago. As the Old Testament would say - he is resting with his ancestors.

Recently, my mom gave me some family papers she'd been saving. I, like my ancestors before me, am a archiver. We collect family letters, histories and stories. In the box of papers was a letter written to me by my grandfather in 1984, when I was 16-years old. It starts out like this...

"Dear Erika:

     Some day I'm going to die. (Do I have your attention?) No, don't get excited; I don't mean this year or in 5 years or anything. But some time. So what else is new? Everybody dies sooner or later.
     And what does this have to do with you right now? It's just that every so often I think about dying, and then there is this: Because I love you very much for being my granddaughter and for being the very fine person you are, I want to leave you with something. There's no way of telling what can be left in the way of money, whether a fair amount or a mere pittance. And anyway, money is a thing that's here today and gone tomorrow. Personal possessions? Perhaps some day you might like some little thing as a keepsake, but other than something to glance at on rare occasions it would have little value."

He goes on to say that he wanted to leave me something that lasts. For him, that meant words of advice and wisdom. The letter is three pages long and is very dear to me. My grandfather was a wise man. For most of my life, I thought he was just my nice old grandpa, but now, I can now see, how much he really loved me.

It's the same way with the Bible. For many people, it's just an ancient book filled with outdated, irrelevant words.
                         
                                                                    But it's so much more.

                                   The Bible is God's book of love for us.

In His kindness and faithfulness, He's handed down all the world's wisdom, history and stories. In Jesus, He's given us much more. He's given us his spirit that dwells in our hearts so that we'll have him for eternity.

Do you see God's word as a stale, leftover remnant of antiquity or a living testimony of his mercy and faithfulness?

Tomorrow, I'll post about some ways to make reading this book of love easier, but in the meantime, I'll leave you with this advice from Grandpa Haines.

"As you go through life, have a good time doing it. Wherever you see a chance for clean, honest fun, go after it. Another popular way of saying it is this: As you pass by, don't forget to smell the roses."

Testing 1-2-3

Today all three of my kids, and Justin, our cousin, are taking a nationally standardized assessment called the Woodcock-Johnson Test. It measures intellectual and cognitive abilities and is done by a specially trained administrator.

In fact, they're going through it right now in our dining room. I'm hiding upstairs in my bedroom eavesdropping. It's silly, I know, but as a homeschooler, testing is something we have to do once a year and I've had this scheduled for months.

A monkey wrench got thrown in my plans though. Yesterday, my son came down with a double ear infection. As a result, he was up half the night and he woke Dania and me as well. So here's this testing administrator in my home and two of my children have hardly slept.

How can I get an accurate test result from half loopy insomniac kids?

I appealed to God and during my quiet time, he led me to this verse in Isaiah 46:6:

Even to your old age and gray hairs

   I am he, I am he who will sustain you.

I have made you and I will carry you;

   I will sustain you and I will rescue you.

What sweet words to my spirit! Then I read up, to the beginning of the passage. Here's what Isaiah 46:1 says:

Bel bows down, Nebo stoops low; 

  their idols are borne by beasts of burden.

The images that are carried about are burdensome,

  a burden for the weary.

Huh? What in the world does that mean? So, I looked it up. Nebo was the Babylonian god of learning. He was the god of writing and science and his followers worshiped him because he was responsible for their fates.

So I asked God? Am I carrying around my own kind of Nebo? And even as I write this, I recall a conversation I had with a friend yesterday. She was telling me about her three kids aged 10, 11 and 12. One son wants to be an engineer and the other a doctor. Those two apologize to her when they get a 99% on their gifted test scores. She doesn't know what to do for the daughter, however. She's happy with all B's and my friend is beside herself with despair.

So, I think somehow she rubbed her Nebo all over me and God had to remind me of who's really in charge of my children's destinies.

This is one test I'm determined not to fail, so thanks for the reminder daddy!

There are many hardships in life, but my biggest struggle lies in trying to fully lay myself (life/hopes/dreams) down for the sake of my husband and family.

 I'm just being honest.

I'm full of pride, and with pride comes a multitude of sinful thoughts and attitudes. I'm also "unlearning" independence which, in one word = brutal.

         Interdependent- Co-dependent - dependent

Dependent only sounds good to me if "in" is attached to it. I'm completely fine with being fully dependent on God. It's just that when he tells me he wants to provide for me through my husband, I start feeling squirmy.

Most days, I don't get encouraged about being a wife and mother, so I have to remember to look to God's word for encouragement. My worth doesn't come from anything I could do or be, but in who I am as God's child and I am... beloved. 

Today I felt drawn to look up Proverbs 31 to remind myself that God highly approves of my desire to be a wife of noble character. I also needed to remember the characteristics of that woman.

"A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies." Proverbs 31:10

I'm not going to type out the full scripture, but I encourage you to read it in it's entirety. After you're done, read this next part, which I copied directly out of my Bible*:

"Proverbs has a lot to say about women. How fitting that the book ends with a picture of a woman of strong character, great wisdom, many skills, and great compassion. 


Some people have the mistaken idea that the ideal woman in the Bible is retiring, servile, and entirely domestic. Not so! This woman is an excellent wife and mother. She is also a manufacturer, importer, manager, realtor, farmer, seamstress, upholsterer, and merchant. Her strength and dignity do not come from her amazing achievements however. They are a result of her reverence for God. In our society where physical appearance counts for so much, it may surprise us to realize that her appearance is never mentioned. Her attractiveness comes entirely from her character.


The woman described in this chapter has outstanding abilities. Her family's social position is high. In fact, she may not be one woman at all - she may be a composite portrait of ideal womanhood. Do not see her as a model to imitate in every detail; your days are not long enough to do everything she does! See her instead as an inspiration to be all you can be. We can't be just like her, but we can learn from her industry, integrity, and resourcefulness."
                                            *Life Application Study Bible, NIV

What wonderful encouragement! It's easy for us to get out of balance and become so busy that we don't love our families with excellence. However, when we apply our efforts out of reverence to God, we'll be covered by His grace, strength and power to get the job done!