Bible Studies and Devotionals

 This next week I will embark on two new studies. Actually, one is an extension of the 2nd Samuel study I just finished. Are you looking for some fairly short studies at this time? Why not join me in reading/listening?

The first is by Beth Boggs, a local Bible study leader. We just finished our study of 2nd Samuel which was interrupted last March. It was finally converted to online audio since such a large group of ladies could not safely meet together as we had been doing. This coming week she is starting a 4-week study of David's legacy followed by Psalm 23. You can go online at a time convenient to you (though the newest lesson isn't posted until Tuesday afternoons). The lessons are archived on her church's website. You need no password to access it. 

If you click on the 11-3-20 lesson, you will see a rectangle labeled LBS lesson Notes to click on to download/save the study questions for this new segment. However, she never goes through the questions as she teaches. She may touch upon the material covered by the questions, but the teaching goes mainly verse by verse. I suspect this legacy study will jump around the Bible some though. She is pleasant to listen to, and you will not need to do the study questions to benefit. Each lesson will be about 50 minutes long.

The second study is one centered on Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts book. I read this book several years ago and still have it on my bookshelf. I ordered the study guide on ebay. Faith Gateway would like you to buy the items from them, but you can get them elsewhere. Your public library may have the book. Grace Village library owns a copy. Maybe somebody in your church would loan you the book. I toyed with not even getting the study guide, but since I found it at a good price I went ahead and ordered it. The study goes November 16 through December 20, with the videos available until December 27. I am not sure how the videos will come out re timing. You can see an introductory video and sign up for the free study at this link to Faith Gateway I can guarantee that you will get emails because I already have. You can unsubscribe to them. 

Since I will not start this study until November 16, I am going to get started next week on a devotional 12 Days of Thanksgiving. The ladies in my church will start this together November 9th. Unfortunately, I do not have a smart phone and my ipad 4 does not have the latest ios because Apple no longer updates it. You have to download the app to interact with a group. But you can do the devotional online by yourself. That is what I am going to do. Or you can download the app and do it on your phone by yourself or invite others to join you. 12 Days of Thanksgiving has a daily reading and devotional thought. Since I didn't download the app, I am not getting emails, but I think you probably will with the app.

I do see this site has some Christmas devotionals as well. 

May God's Word bless you in the coming weeks.

Take a Dare

These thoughts from Ann Voskamp challenged me today. How about you? Are we willing to let go of our ideas of what our lives should be and see God work? For some of us, our natural inclinations and behavior traits go contrary to “let go and let God”, but we need to at least pray about what has been presented and have the Holy Spirit gently nudge us where God wants us.

 

 

From Ann:

 

Dare to be grateful for every good thing. And dare to know it’s all good. That’s what God does: God works everything for good.

Dare to never make pain invisible but dare to say injustice is intolerable. This takes courage. This takes Christ.

Dare to give up clarity — because God gives a call. Dare to give up life road maps — because God gives a relationship.

Dare to live without answers — because God gives His hand.

Dare to live by faith — not by feelings, formulas, facts or fences.

Nothing is impossible with God.

A Ledger of Love

Have you ever pondered why Eve and Adam disobeyed God? They were not satisfied with what God had provided for them. They were ungrateful, wanting more. Human kind follows in the steps of the First Parents exhibiting the sin of ingratitude. How well do we give thanks always for all things to God as instructed in Ephesians 5:20?

Ann Voskamp’s friend challenged her to make a list of 1,000 things for which she was thankful; thus, the title of her book 1000 Gifts.
It is pretty easy to see the big picture items like family, health, housing, food, perhaps an extraordinary answer to prayer, but what about small things? To capture 1000 gifts from God in writing or photos, requires being aware and focused on the moments of our days. Why should we even bother to enumerate and give thanks to God for a beautiful sunset, a kind word from a friend, a close parking spot when our energy is flagging?

Because the practice of giving thanks is the way we realize the presence of God in all of the moments of life. It builds and undergirds our relationship with God. Gratitude for the seemingly insignificant plants the seeds for what Ann calls hard thanksgiving, the times of loss, pain, suffering that we all experience in our fallen world. With day after day bathed in thanks, we touch the pulse of God’s love for us and we build a relationship of trust that gets us through the hard times and creates a willingness to say “Thy will be done” to the Heavenly Father. We can give thanks in everything because there is a good God working all things unto the purposes of His plan.

Will you start a ledger of God’s love for you? Take paper and pen or camera and record His gifts throughout your day. Ann has many suggestions on her Joy Dare calendar on her blog. Here are some samples: 1 gift that made you laugh; 1 gift that made you pray; 1 gift that made you quiet. Something above you, something below you, something beside you.

God is evident all around us.

Psalm 136:3-7
v.3 Give thanks to the Lord of Lords; For His lovingkindness is everlasting.
v.4 Give thanks to Him who alone does great wonders; For His lovingkindness is everlasting.
v.5 Give thanks to Him who made the heavens with skill; for His lovingkindness is everlasting.
v.6 Give thanks to Him who spread out the earth above the waters; for His lovingkindness is everlasting.
v.7 Give thanks to Him who made the great lights; for His lovingkindness is everlasting.

Go out and embrace the beauty and goodness of God through the act of thanksgiving.

The Passing of Time

I took some time last night to write in my journal about the first anniversary of our move to our retirement condo and the fifth anniversary of my husband’s retirement. I didn’t really finish reflecting because a neighbor called and invited us over for some fresh-baked peach cobbler. Of course we couldn’t turn that down.
Today while reading Gretchen Rubin’s blog, I followed a link to an excerpt from her upcoming book Happiness at Home. Here is a quote from that excerpt: As poet Robert Southey explained: “Live as long as you may, the first twenty years are the longest half of your life. They appear so while they are passing; they seem to have been so when we look back on them; and they take up more room in our memory than all the years that succeed them.” You can read more about this concept here.
I started thinking about that. Are the memories of my first decades the strongest? It does seem that after 40, things go by in a big blur. But I only have impressions from my pre-school years, not discrete incidents like I did once in school. Perhaps the regularity yet ascent of learning thru the grades plays a part. Each year presented new challenges. When you are a child, you also feel like you have all the time in the world; when you are 60, you see how precious the minutes are because there are fewer left to experience. You have friends that have left this world with its ticking off of time for eternity.
Another idea Gretchen mentioned is that if she got thru the next 3 or 4 months things would slow down. She calls this a delusion. I sure know that feeling, but I actually have had times slow down, though usually with some intentional planning. Without paid employment and children, one can control the flow of time better in retirement.
Several years ago I read The Not So Big Life by Sarah Susanka. She says, “When you transcend the boundaries you constructed from your past and set for your future and live in the NOW, you grow.” Ann Voskamp also wrote a post on her blog once about the only way to slow down time is to live in the now, noticing and giving thanksgiving for the details of the present moment.
I am a planner and like Gretchen, I have to-do lists in my head. I need to just “be” more, to go with the flow of time and be fully in the moment. That is the way to slow down the clock. Not easy to do when you have people expecting meals at certain times, etc. Is that why the first decades seem to have gone by more slowly? Children have few urgent responsibilities. They get caught up in the joy of the moment. A worthy goal for all of us.

The Beggar

When I chose a name for my blog, I wanted to use “a beggar’s bowl”, but I discovered I needed to modify it because someone else had that name. I especially wanted to keep beggar in the title to emphasize the neediness and dependence of the one (me) lifting up the bowl.

I am not holding out my bowl and pleading with the giver. The giver is not stingy or mean or begrudging. He wants to provide what I need. I did not choose the beggar imagery to reflect on the character of the giver, but on the condition of the recipient.

Sometimes what fills the beggar’s bowl is tasty and abundant. Other times it is sour or hard to digest, prickly or bony. But if the beggar throws away the gift, he will be malnourished and weak. In his need, the unacceptable must become the acceptable. He does not have the luxury of sorting through what has been provided for his sustenance and growth and discarding what he deems unpalatable if he is to be filled and reach his full stature.

If I believe the giver (God) is good (and I do), then the items in the bowl should be received with thankfulness, even the hard-to-digest or unpalatable ones.

Ann Voskamp in her book 1000 Gifts talks of the hard “gifts”, the pain and suffering and loss universal to the human condition. These are the hard to swallow, the things that must be accepted as necessary though bitter. We could debate whether the donor directly provides them or simply allows them to fill our bowl, but He has made them part of our rations. They supply something needful for us to grow.

To truly accept, one must lift the bowl believing everything put in it has a purpose that will work together for good and God’s glory. Am I willing to receive it with that perspective? Sometimes I am, other times I want to cover the bowl with my hand and say no more spinach, God; more candy, please. There are indeed hard gifts.