Validating the Way You Connect With God

January 11, 2012 By JulieBastuk 1 Comment

You really need to sit down at a designated time each day and have a structured Bible study and prayer time, a “quiet time”….Really?

Oops, well, I didn’t get that done today, or yesterday….not sure how many times in the last couple of months that exact thing has happened. Anyone else with me?

Okay, so in reality I”m not really that worried about it, because despite my lack of “structure”, I have connected with God in really meaningful ways, and it could be that despite the guilt you’re feeling over not having your daily quiet time at exactly 7 am with a half hour of Bible study and hour of “prayer” that you’re pretty connected with him too.

Have you ever noticed that the people that write books about quiet time and Bible study are the people with personality types that really appreciate and foster that kind of structure? ESTJs and ESTPs seem to write alot of material along these lines. People like me, INFJs and INFPs, seem to write more books resembling Blue Like Jazz, those seemingly obtuse and abstract texts that can be life changing to some and absolutely nebulous to others. (Check out the Myers-Briggs personality assessment if you have no idea what I’m referring to.)

Fact is, I used to feel horribly guilty over the fact that I seemed to really connect with God throughout the day in ways other than a structured quiet time and Bible study. I can certainly get alot out of Bible study, and God speaks to me through it, but some of the times where I’ve felt closest to Him is when I’m driving down the road with the kids yelling in the backseat, listening to worship music. Sometimes while watching a movie, God will take a theme and really drive home a point to me. (Yes, truth can be found in secular movies. :) ). Finally, some of the sweetest times I’ve heard from God is when he directs me, by “coincidence” to a book that I needed to read at just that time with the answers I was seeking to certain questions.

It wasn’t until I started seeing a marriage and family therapist who has a wonderful relationship with Jesus did I start realizing that my way of connecting with God is just as valid and rich as the person who can sit in silence for hours studying and praying. She encouraged me that because God made our personalities in such a varied way, we can’t expect to all relate to him in exactly the same way.

This revelation has been liberating to me, and I can finally believe that my relationship with God is as authentic as that of the person who faithfully gets up and spends time with God in exactly the same place and at the same time each day. It has also freed me from the tendency to judge so much. In the past it used to drive me absolutely nuts when the worship on a Sunday at church seemed so amazing to me and Spirit-filled, while my husband would be indifferent about it. It’s not that he was being less spiritual than me….he usually got alot out of the sermons in a way that I didn’t always. God was simply reaching out to us differently through our different personalities.

So, if you’ve struggled with something similar, be encouraged. Having specific quiet time with the Lord is important, but don’t load yourself with guilt if your nature fights against the rigid structure of devotions that works well for some, but not all. Find the ways your feel closest to God, and hear his voice….broaden and deepen those areas of your life, and rejoice in the personality that God gave you, thanking Him for all the sweet, personal ways he reveals himself to you.

Seeking to fully live,

Filed Under: Bible Study, Christian Living

August 3, 2011 By JulieBastuk Leave a Comment

And above all else,

guard your heart,

for it is the

wellspring of life.

Proverbs 4:23

I’ve been a part of a Bible study this summer at my church that is going through the book Girls Gone Wise in a World Gone Wild by Mary Kassian. Initially I joined the study simply because I needed some more women in my life and I would have been content to sit around and talk about anything, from laundry to how to boil water. Nobody has ever labeled me as “wild”, so I was uncertain how relevant the actual book study would be to me.

Now that the study is over, I can see how necessary it was for me to read the book and evaluate certain areas of my life. While I am certainly still not “wild” and am a devoted follower of Jesus, the Lord showed me several areas where I wasn’t keeping up my guard and had set my self on a slippery slope to merge more into cultural beliefs if I’m not careful and diligent.

The number one area of my life that I have been convicted about is the media and entertainment that I allow myself to come into contact with. It’s kind of funny, I have pared it down enormously over the past several years (we have no cable, I hardly ever watch rated R movies unless I have perused reviews ahead of time, I have almost completely cut out my reading of secular women’s magazines, etc). However, the cultural influences that are still in my life are still impacting my thought life and belief systems. I try to stay up to date with what is going on in our culture so as to be relevant, but I’m coming to believe that sometimes the desire to be relevant is walking a fine line. Trying to keep up with headlines and what is important to the world to be able to engage with them very often veers sharply away from Paul’s encouragement:

⁸ Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

Proverbs 4:8

In my attempts to stay on top of everything and be relevant, I have put my heart in jeopardy, and I can see little ways that I’m being influenced negatively that are showing themselves in my actions and thoughts.

God seems to do a lot of his “pestering” of me in my dreams. I mean that in a good way. He often uses my dreams to really give me wake up calls and observe patterns in my life that are harmful, or areas that need to be focused on. For example, God often uses my dreams to show me relationships that I have with people where I need to have conversations with them, release anger and bitterness, or talk to him about ways that I am tied to these people spiritually and emotionally in unhealthy ways.

I’m learning that he does the same to show me areas in my life that are being influenced too much by the secular world, usually through very similar repeated dreams. The content of these dreams, which usually shocks and horrifies me, reveal to me that I’m letting subtle things from TV, media, and books sneak into my mind and worm their way into my thought patterns, while I only think I”m being harmlessly entertained.

So, I’m completely reevaluating what I’m allowing to come into my house, my car, the places where my children are, etc. It’s not always convenient to censor to carefully, but it is crucial. My relationship with Jesus depends on it, the salvation and relationships of my children can be greatly influenced by my decisions, and my impact among those who don’t know Jesus can be severely hindered if I don’t take great care with how I live my life.

I encourage all women to check this book out, and see what ways God show them how to wise up a bit and not simply be carried along with the flow of our culture.

Seeking to fully live,

Filed Under: Bible Study, Book Reviews, Christian Living, Parenting Tagged With: culture, wisdom

Deeper Into the Word (Book Review)

April 25, 2011 By JulieBastuk 1 Comment

Deeper Into the Word by Keri Wyatt Kent takes us beyond the surface of our New Testament reading, past the obvious definitions of words that we think we are familiar with, and provides background and extensive explanations regarding their use.

Choosing 100 words from the New Testament, Kent created a very readable but informative book that could be used for Bible study, devotionals, or as a quick reference source. Using personal anectodes and excerpts from commentaries keeps it from being a dry read, and questions smattered throughout the text cause the reader to consider more seriously the information being presented, rather than just quickly passing over it.

This book is a valuable resource in the library of any follower of Jesus who is seeking a deeper understand of key words and ideas in the Bible but can’t read Greek and doesn’t have the time or motivation to delve into thick commentaries. Beyond just helping readers get a better grasp of ideas lost in translation, Kent provides background to help bridge cultural and historical gaps that we in the West struggle with in attempting to understand the New Testament.
*This book was provided free of charge for review by Bethany House Publishers. All opinions are mine.

Filed Under: Bible Study, Book Reviews Tagged With: Bible study, review

A Top Down Approach to Scripture Memory

February 3, 2011 By JulieBastuk 2 Comments

With the new year comes New Year’s resolutions. A resolution that seems to be chosen quite frequently is the goal of memorizing more Scripture in the coming year.

A worthy goal, yes, but daunting. When I think of undertaking the task of memorizing verses, I always end up feeling guilty, recalling accounts of foreign, oppressed Christians who have memorized huge portions of the Bible while I have done so little.

The typical approach that I’ve encountered for Scripture memory is to pick a book of the Bible and just start hacking away at it, starting at the beginning and working to the end, one verse at a time. Another approach would be to pick out the random verses that mean the most to a particular person and memorize them one at a time.

While these two plans work for many people, they just aren’t super effective for me and the way my brain works. I am a big picture person, and almost always, the way for me to retain information the best is to start with a big idea and work my way down to the details.

Here’s my approach to memorizing portions of the Bible:

1. Pick a book to work on commiting to memory.

2. Instead of starting with verse 1 and memorizing away, study the main idea of each chapter and work on retaining them.

3. After being able to recall the theme content of each chapter, delve deeper into each, a chapter at a time, to memorize sub-themes.

4. Finally, focus on memorizing the actual verses for each chapter.

While this may seem rather simplistic, it’s been hugely helpful for me to retain Biblical information for much longer, compared to when I immediately jump in and start working on a book verse by verse.

I will never forget the Gospel of John course I took in college. My professor, who taught me to love the book, insisted that we memroize the main idea of each chapter and be able to easily recall it when asked. So now, whenever someone mentions John 4, I immediately think “the chapter about the woman at the well.” John 10 is burned into my memory as the “Good Shepherd” chapter. As I mentally break apart the book of John into its themes, it is so much easier to remember specific verses and where they fit into the book as a whole.

My biggest personal struggle is with my identity in Christ, and all that entails, so this year I’m going to work on memorizing the book of Ephesians using my top-down approach. Want to join me?

Seeking to fully live,

Filed Under: Bible Study Tagged With: Scripture