Help! Love, MOM

And we all, with unveiled face, continually seeing as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are progressively being transformed into His image from [one degree of] glory to [even more] glory, which comes from the Lord, [who is] the Spirit.

2 Corinthians 3:18 Amplified Version

Not Leaving but not Looking

I love the beach. The shore, the waves, wind, and open skies – love, love, love it all.

I am often a little wary, but, I also appreciate the community of fellow, if temporary, beach neighbors.

The varied ways of “beaching” captivate: the multiple types of music, food, groupings of people, beach costumes: I find it all interesting and part of the adventure of having a beach day.

For example, last year I happily joined an impromptu serenade of a little girl whose family celebrated her birthday at the beach. This year I was amazed at a grown up Ariel photoshoot complete with a shell home, mermaid flippers, wig etc.

Seaside serendipity.

Today, I noticed a particular beach buddy.

I saw a young lady who, seriously, I thought was naked for a second. Her swimsuit was not only scanty it was skin colored.

She comprised a trio of young people, balanced by an older couple on my other side. The trio ignored me.

The couple, particularly the wife, however, took pity on me especially after I jumped up to rescue my umbrella from blowing across the Long Island Sound.

Plucked out of its, evidently, insecure mooring by a fiesty, gusty breeze, I imagine it to have been at least chuckle worthy to watch me run out into the water to barely grasp my umbrella, recently purchased.

Gratefully returning with my prize and shade joy, my beach neighbor, the wife, offered a garden shovel to help dig a deeper hole.

When I looked in the couple’s direction to receive the kind and gracious offer I noticed the husband also looking in my general direction.

And then again when I returned the tool.

And then again when I just looked over because it’s a beach street and the neighbors are close-ish.

Something about the fixed nature of his posture inspired me to peer in exactly the direction he appeared to be looking.

The man’s gaze, I discovered, obscured by polarized sunglasses, was turned, not on the state of my wannabe sandy tumbleweed, but instead on the nearly naked 20-something just 2 brellies down on our little popup, beach “street.”

Not that these kinds of things are always obvious, however, the wife seemed like a perfectly fine wife. Certainly, she was a sympathetic, beach neighbor. They seemed to be well matched.

The husband did not appear to want to leave his wife; however, neither did he appear to like looking at her.

As I observed him observing the girl, not his wife, who, to be clear, was also clad in a fashionable suit with a good body for what I guestimate her age to be; I thought about the hidden disconnect when on is in a relationship, that doesn’t inspire us to look to that partner for delight and joy.

The thought also occurs to me that the older couple may not have been married. They may have been siblings. However, I presumed them to be a non-platonic couple.

Men may also view this entire scene entirely differently. I invite your feedback.

However, my thought was that there are Christians for whom this is also true.

Few people engage with God’s word on a regular basis.

Lifeway Research

We are not leaving Christ but we no longer look at Him with joy, delight and longing. It is as if the magnificent LORD who

~ left the glories of heaven to live in this world with us,

~ with His own blood, that is with the sacrifice of His life, redeemed us,

~ gives us exceeding and precious promises to daily encourage us,

becomes humdrum and largely ignored while we lavish important but not eternal things with ardent attention.

This may be because we have stopped viewing Him, looking for Him in the light where He is seen most clearly – through the Holy Scriptures.

How to Continue or Start your Bible Reading Journey

Start Slow and Small

Choose a segment of the Bible to read for just 5 minutes, regularly. The key is to have these to be 5 authentically-engaged minutes like when I’m viewing a really funny reel for the 10th time.

I’m not the only one, am I?

I also know that here in America we laud the Big and Beautiful. However, the Kingdom of God grows by the principal of seeds.

If you regularly invest in looking at God through the grace of scripture even for just 5 minutes per day you will reap a gracious harvest of wanting read — or listen to — more of it.

You will have difficult days when the 5 minutes seems like 15. You’ll have days when you miss the 5 minutes because you forgot. But try it and I predict that, one day soon you’ll be reading more Bible than you have before.

Try Listening to the Bible as Well as Reading It

I don’t usually use this method for as my preferred method of taking in the Bible. However, I have friends who appear to me to be solid Christians, and, who both love and recommend the scriptures in this manner.

The visually impaired and others, of course, take great advantage of the blessing of audio Bible availability.

The usual venues for bible apps: BibleGateway, YouVersion and Blue Letter Bible have audio features.

Try Using a Different Translation

According to Lifeway Research most people find the Bible challenging to understand. Many report that the struggle for clear biblical meaning is a barrier to regularly reading the Bible.

Agreed.

However, when I started to regularly read the Bible in different translations, the Word of God marvelously opened up to me. I started with the Good News version. Super accessible.

For example, I had never understood the depth of the self righteous, coldness of Job’s friends toward his suffering.

Until I read Job in the GNV I missed his frenemies’ religiously informed, savage misdiagnosis of Job’s suffering. I knew they were bad, but yikes!

Their confident cruelty helps, I hope, to temper my heart and words when walking with those who walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

Try reading the Bible within a community.

In 2019 my church read through the Bible together.

We cleverly called it Through The Bible, Together (TTBT).

While not exactly fun, because, major prophets in the summer, somehow, we enjoyed it.

Maybe it was the Person of the book.

To be sure, community also made a huge difference.

My great takeaway since the initial whole church walk-through experience is that I now read the Bible through every year to keep me on track with daily Bible reading.

Try a Bible reading plan.

All of the bible apps also have bible reading plans.

I highly recommend YouVersion which can be downloaded for free here. In the YouVersion app you can read the bible on your own or within a community.

I’m on YouVersion. If you send me a friend request I’d be honored to join your bible reading journey and to invite you to mine.

With various lengths and different topics available, you’re sure to find a bible reading plan that God will use to speak to you about Himself and you.

YouVersion, which is approaching 1 billion downloads, is an amazing space to:

• read the Bible with friends or alone, in many versions;
• pray;
• follow your favorite bible teacher or ministry, and more.

I recommend How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth.

How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth is especially helpful in its ability to clarify and to make the Bible more accessible.

I am a church kid through and through. I find that the fish, often, neither see nor sense the water.

My point is that having grown up with the Bible, I thought I knew what I needed to know about Job, to continue with my original Bible example.

However, Fee and Stuart, for example, can enlighten us to the unique nature and use of poetry in wisdom literature like Job as well as their special place in the biblical narrative.

Their work helped to re-awaken a fresh sense of awe and wonder about, so-called, familiar passages of scripture.

Finally, regularly (physically or virtually) join a bible study.

Your local church very likely has a Sunday School and Bible class. These are GREAT places to study the bible in a group of people who know you. If you attend a big church, joining a group is a great way to meet people.

CS Lewis Institute offers free courses on bible based subject matter eg discipleship and others. I love that there is a live, teacher-led component along with the videos offered.

My instructor, Dr. Jim was the best, most patient teacher our class could have asked for. I’m a Gideon Warrior, Dr. Jim = )

Dallas Theological Seminary also offers free courses on books of the bible eg Acts and others. My course on Acts was helpful to my understanding of that complex book. I am thankful for an institution which enjoys the sterling reputation of DTS and also makes free materials available.

When I signed up for my course there was a strong encouragement to give an amount of your choice to DTS which I was happy to do. I don’t know if you have to give something in order to take a class or if the classes truly are free. I will post an update ASAP.

Desiring God has a massive collection of the prolific work mainly of Dr. John Piper former pastor and public theologian, author and friend of Christians everywhere. Most if not most resources are free.

Desiring God features the work of many gifted speakers and writers has been invaluable in helping me to clarify my thoughts on bible based subjects.

Jude 3 Project offers courses, mainly for black Christians, specifically about apologetics or apologetics adjacent subjects.

While faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God there are those individuals who also benefit from a culturally cohesive presentation of that faith. Most of Jude 3’s resources are available for a reasonable cost, however, they also offer many podcasts and other video resources for free.

Insight for Living, like Desiring God, has a huge collection of resources that are mostly available for free. My first encounter with Insight was through the preaching and teaching ministry of Pastor Chuck Swindoll (Dr. Charles R. Swindoll) on the radio.

Then I discovered the overview charts (scroll to the bottom of the page) that Pastor Chuck and team create for each book of the bible. A chart for Job is here.

These are SUPER helpful FREEEEEEE tools to understanding the overall flow of and the major themes etc of all 66 books of the bible.

Come back to your first Love. Find Him in the scriptures. I believe that He has a special joy and grace waiting for you there.

Blessings!