Category: Christian growth

Read the Bible With Me in 2026
Bible study · Christian growth

Read the Bible With Me in 2026

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Reading the entire Bible in a year is the best thing I’ve ever done. My daughter, Whitney invited me to join her about five years ago and it was the best part of my year!

Reading, understanding, and loving the Bible has transformed our lives as a followers of Jesus.

 Whitney and I would love for you to read along with us in 2026!

How can you join us in reading the Bible in 2026?

—> Click here to join our group in the Bible app. This is how you’ll know what to read each day. There’s no required interaction in this group or things you have to do – but I’ve found that it’s good to have the accountability of being in a group as I read.

With the Bible app, I like to listen to the Scriptures being read audibly. You can also just read it through the app or use the daily guide as a reference for following along in your Bible. I personally prefer to read using either the ESV or CSB versions.

There are a few resources that you can use to aid your understanding as you read:

The Bible Recap podcast: A 7(ish) minute podcast that gives the context, historical background, and other details to help you understand what you read. This is such a blessing to me – many times bringing me to tears by the end of the episode.The Bible Recap book: This is a condensed version of the podcast, with a 2-page spread for each day’s reading. It’s nice to have for reference, or in place of the podcast if you’re a visual learner.

The Bible Recap Study Guide: I’m thinking about using this book for 2025, since I’ve done the basic TBR plan several years in a row now and feel like I’m ready to add an extra level of study. This book has reflection and research questions specific to each day’s reading, as well as space to write your responses.

The Bible Project YouTube videos: These are super helpful to watch before beginning a new book of the Bible. They kind of give the who, what, when and where for each book.Please don’t let this list overwhelm you! I’ve read the Bible in a year several times without any of these tools and was deeply enriched and helped. You’re not going to understand it all, but that is okay.

This post contains affiliate links – I (Whitney) will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links.  

❤
Growing Spiritually In the Busy Years
Christian growth · Christian Life · Motherhood

Growing Spiritually In the Busy Years

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This post was originally posted in 2015

She remembers the day when she could get up, pour coffee, grab her Bible and head out to some comfy, solitary place to read, journal and pray.  Now this busy mom’s alarm clock is a baby, a toddler and her school-aged children.  Their faces, their needs, their cries all come first.  There’s only apple juice, baby bottles, Cheerios and burned toast first thing after getting up.  Oh, the coffee is made, but has been sitting on the burner for far too long. Her time in God’s Word is a desire in her heart, but how will it happen when there are so many other demands on a young mom’s plate?  What is a young mom to do to grow spiritually?

Your demands as a woman might be different, but you’re busier than you’ve ever been, and find it difficult to cultivate time in God’s Word that is meaty and meaningful.  What is a busy woman to do to grow spiritually?

 

I believe there are several practical ways for every woman to spend time in God’s Word when life is busy.

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  1. Place devotional books, books of God’s Promises, or other short reads in places where you can stop for a minute and read something from God’s Word.  Put those kinds of books in a basket in the bathroom (if you’re fortunate enough to be in there alone!), in the laundry area, or in the car.  Read something that will encourage your heart for that minute or two.
  2. Listen to podcasts of preaching or other biblical broadcasts while you’re nursing the baby, folding clothes, making dinner, riding in the car, etc.  
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  3. Listen to Scripture on your phone.  In the same times I listed in #2, when you can’t sit down and open your Bible, you can still listen to someone else read it!  I love the You Version.
  4. proverbs marked20150323_091209
    Read the Proverb for the day.  It probably only takes about five minutes to read a chapter.  Highlight the verse(s) that jump out and speak to your heart and needs.
  5. Don’t fill your mind with television and other “junk!”  Use every opportunity to fill your heart and mind with God’s Word instead!
  6. Write one verse that you want to memorize  on a 3×5 card .  Tuck that card into your pocket and keep it with you all day.  Pull it out and refresh your heart with the next sentence, and the next and the next.  In a couple of day’s time, you’ll have it memorized!  Scripture in your heart can feed you all day long!

As your life slows down, begin to add in more and more of the kind of Quiet time that will really nurture your heart.  These strategies are for a season, but not forever.  Eventually you’ll be able to be back in a regular routine of study, journaling and prayer, but in the meantime, you can still be fruitful and growing!

Don’t allow the busy times to make you stagnant.  This (busyness), too, shall pass – but you’ll never recapture what you could have gleaned if you don’t grab the spiritual nuggets when you can!

Are you a busy woman like I described?  Which of these tools will you try?

With love,

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How Do We Have a Hot Heart for God?
Biblical Womanhood · Christian growth · God's Will · spiritual growth

How Do We Have a Hot Heart for God?

RefreshHer7 Comments

I am going through one of my favorite books…again.  A Woman After God’s Own Heart, by Elizabeth George.  When I was a young mom, I began reading this book every other year because I found it so helpful for growth in every area of my life!
Now I have the blessing of going through it with a woman who is in the same stage of life as when I began studying these truths that Elizabeth carefully penned.  These principles are life-changing.  For that reason, I thought it would be helpful for me to share highlights from the chapters as I review them. I won’t give all the details, but will share the important truths from each chapter. I pray that you’ll find them as helpful as I have over these years.

Discipline – nothing great happens without it, and that includes spiritual growth.  We don’t grow by our grit, but by the steady commitment to being a woman who stays in God’s Word.  It cannot be a casual approach that studies when we have time, or only when there is a crisis.  But how do we have the discipline to be a woman after God’s heart?

We must choose God at every opportunity.

In Luke 10 we read the beloved story of Jesus visiting Mary and Martha. Mary chose to stop all activity and listen to the Lord. She ceased all other activity so she could do just that. 

Perhaps we need to ask – 

  1. What activity in my life is keeping me moving, anxious and unable to listen to the voice of the Lord in His Word?
  2. How do I find myself “interrupting Him” as Martha did?

It’s hard to hear and heed God’s Word without the discipline to sit still and listen. We must make the choice to choose the one thing that is needed. Then after we’ve given it to the Lord, He takes over.  He does the Psalm 32:8 thing ~

I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye.”

Each day, commit yourself afresh and anew to the Lord. Give Him your time, your possessions and your home – even if they are few, yourself – even as weak as you are, and ESPECIALLY because of your weakness!! Give him your husband and each child. Name each one. If you are not praying for your husband, who is? If you are not praying for your child, who will?

Andrew Murray said, God is ready to assume full responsibility for the life wholly yielded to Him.

Elizabeth says to “cultivate a hot heart for God.” Cultivate is to “Foster the growth of,” “To improve by labor.”To have a hot heart for God is to go against the culture of this world where we are only encouraged to “have it your way!”  But we have to do the work necessary to have that heart that is burning for Christ! 

I’m always intrigued to read obituaries in the paper.  When I see that a Christian has died, I always wonder how they are described by their family.  “She loved the beach” “She loved to bake cakes for others.” “She was the best grandmother.” I pray I can be remembered as a woman who had a hot heart for the Lord!

How do you want to be remembered? If it’s your desire to be a woman who follows God and has a heart for Him, then you must make a daily decision to choose God’s ways, make a commitment of yourself to the Lord daily, and then a cultivate a heart of spiritual fervency.

What you’re doing with your life today is contributing to how you will be remembered. Make today count.

Hang Onto Every Word
Bible study · Christian growth · Spiritual Refreshment

Hang Onto Every Word

RefreshHer1 Comment

Enraptured. Listening to every word spoken from His lips.

That’s the way the crowd at the temple listened to Jesus speak. He had just cleared out the money changers. They were the ones who had turned the temple of prayer into a place where robbers lurked. The Scribes and Pharisees hated him and only desired to kill Him, and what do we find Jesus doing? Teaching there in that temple. He spoke with such authority in simple words they could understand with Truth they had never heard before.

Luke 19:48 says…

All the people were very attentive to hear him.

In the Greek it says that they were “hanging on to His lips.” We have a saying that is similar. We would say, “they were hanging onto every word.”

What a contrast His words were to the formal, boring, dry, powerless and over-their-heads teaching from the scribes! Jesus’ words were life-giving and life-changing!

They still are.

Is your ear bent down close to your Bible so you can hear Him speak to you each day? Oh that we would say with the psalmist in Psalm 119 ~

 I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies, as much as in all riches.

15 I will meditate in thy precepts, and have respect unto thy ways.

16 I will delight myself in thy statutes: I will not forget thy word.

17 Deal bountifully with thy servant, that I may live, and keep thy word.

18 Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.

When you get in your car and “tune in” to a radio station, you can only listen to one station at a time. When you open your Bible to read, or when you are sitting in church listening to God’s Word being taught, are you “tuned in” to only one station – that of hearing from God? Or are you trying to tune in to several stations at one time – your text messages, your email alerts, your Facebook notifications or other distractions?

Oh that we would love God’s Words so much that we would “hang on to every word” so we won’t miss a single thing He wants to say to us!

Refresh the way you listen to the Word today. Stay tuned in to only One voice. What precious words did He speak to you today?