[SPEAKER_01]: If you're listening to the intentional parents podcast, brought to you by Intentional.
[SPEAKER_01]: Intentional is all about spiritual formation in the family.
[SPEAKER_01]: We desire to bring biblical hope and practical hope.
[SPEAKER_01]: Enjoy this week's conversation.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, welcome back to the intentional parents podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am here with Phil and Diane today.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Elizabeth, unfortunately, is not here, but Phil and Diane high feel free to talk.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can say it's a high, correct?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not a while since we've actually been in the studio.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's true.
[SPEAKER_01]: Altogether, but we're here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Elizabeth was unfortunately not able to make it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We had some arrangements with the kids that didn't work out.
[SPEAKER_01]: So she'll be on the next episode.
[SPEAKER_01]: I promise.
[SPEAKER_01]: But she's not here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to also say thank you to everyone that's rated subscribed and taken a minute to do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's such a gift.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's a growing Spotify community.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been finding out, Phil and Daniel explained to you what that is later.
[SPEAKER_01]: Growing Spotify community.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just kidding.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not insulted.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, anyway, there's like a bunch of comments and ratings over there, so thank you all for doing that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then also if you want to watch all this stuff, you can just head over to YouTube.
[SPEAKER_01]: So those are the things that I just want to let you know about, thank you guys for doing that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone that's done that, what a gift.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, we have some fun stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to hear an advertisement later from our crew, but we are just so excited.
[SPEAKER_01]: We were talking about preparing for our very first marriage retreat, which is really exciting.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you haven't heard about this yet, May 2025, we're doing two different weekends, which is great.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are a couple of weeks apart out here at Pursada Ranch, which is one of the best Google that right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you have a moment,
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a resort spot and it's just an opportunity for couples to get away and come and we're excited Villandayan Elizabeth and I are gonna be sharing and giving space to just, you know, not only practice I'ma so we're talking about but there's you can go horseback riding in the spot There's like spas there's all these like great things to do so if that at all interests you It's gonna be a great time.
[SPEAKER_01]: How are you guys feeling about that?
[SPEAKER_01]: I know we've been talking about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Really excited.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love Versailles.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, such a peaceful place
[SPEAKER_02]: wide open blue skies, great places to walk.
[SPEAKER_02]: But also, we want to make it this kind of an ex, well, very much an experience for husbands and wives to just be given a moment to fall back in love with each other, mind each other, what's important, that they're in this for the long haul.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well passed when the kids leave.
[SPEAKER_02]: And just just as maybe a weekend of reminder and a free fresh,
[SPEAKER_02]: of why we're married, why we fell in love in the first place.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm really glad you said that because yes, it's in a beautiful place setting, but we're not going to be teaching eight hours a day.
[SPEAKER_05]: We've got sessions, but they'll be time to be alone, go and walk, take a nap, it can be.
[SPEAKER_05]: We wanted to be a refreshing, romantic weekend, where you can reconnect without the pressure that comes with parenting, which is beautiful and real, but to be a take a break
[SPEAKER_05]: And this is one day you will look at each other, the kids will all be gone and like I say some couples look at each other and go I hardly know that that doesn't have to be you know So this is a kind of place to stay in love and keep the fires burning well keep the fires burning Yeah, they don't have fire actually some of them do have fire.
[SPEAKER_01]: They did I think some of them do have fireplaces, but that said this isn't only
[SPEAKER_01]: for you if you have kids right if you're out of that stage of life and you're looking for a reason to come it's going to be a great time and a great time for all of us to connect and and these events won't be too big it's about 40 couples per trip so that there's going to be space in time to connect and we can't wait to connect with all you so.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're interested, I think there'll be a link in the show notes.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can check all that stuff out.
[SPEAKER_01]: So make sure to check that out.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we wanted to, something that's kind of come up.
[SPEAKER_01]: We did the Motherhood Retreat.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll debrief that at another time.
[SPEAKER_01]: We had a great time.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a wonderful opportunity to connect with so many of you that listened.
[SPEAKER_01]: But also, we did our first live podcast, which was really fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: Joe Yodam was on.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was just hilarious as usual.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that was not only a great time, but eye opening, because there were so many,
[SPEAKER_01]: really good questions that came in.
[SPEAKER_01]: As they're always are, I don't know if we've ever gotten a bad question per say, but one of the questions that kind of came up in a recurring way, and we want to do address it here, because I think it's a really important one, is what are some of our daily habits as a team?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, what are the things that we do individually?
[SPEAKER_01]: To really encourage, grow, deepen our apprenticeship to Jesus, our formation in Jesus, our walking with Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's all different phrases that kind of mean the same thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: How do we interact with God in a regular way, in a daily way, depending upon maybe some of our dispositions, we're all different types of people.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we kind of started realizing really quickly, there's a couple of habits for all of us, all four of us, that are really consistent.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the main one that was really clear for all of us is reading the scriptures.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now before you like tune out and you're like, oh, this is an episode about reading the Bible.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not fully.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what we're gonna talk about as the backdrop.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we wanna actually pick apart and frame really what we mean by that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because there's a lot of people that will say,
[SPEAKER_01]: I read my Bible every day or I try to or they feel guilt about not doing that or they'll say something like I'm trying to have devotions, devotions are like a big part of what I do but a lot of people don't necessarily either, I understand what that means fully or be actually know what we mean by that when we say that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So our hope is to give some clarity behind this and to talk about the importance of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I know Phil and I and this have been a huge part of your life.
[SPEAKER_01]: huge part of your own story, huge part of Elizabeth and I's life together and individually.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I want to talk about that today.
[SPEAKER_01]: So before we jump into that, I'd love for you guys, so maybe just give a couple of thoughts.
[SPEAKER_01]: On the importance of this, before we jump into some of our framework and we have five different things, so stay hang tight, five different things, and five different ways that you can choose to adopt some of these elements and incorporate them in your daily rhythms so that you can really actually make the most of reading the scriptures.
[SPEAKER_01]: Does that make sense?
[SPEAKER_01]: Thoughts on that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thoughts on this before we jump.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I mean, like you said, this was an early part of our discipleship.
[SPEAKER_02]: Both of us are first generation Christians, meaning we didn't, we weren't raised in Christian homes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Nobody ever read the Bible in our home.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't even know that you were supposed to read the Bible so to speak.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was a teenager, 15, when I
[SPEAKER_02]: started hearing the gospel.
[SPEAKER_02]: It took me many months to put it together.
[SPEAKER_02]: But as part of that, part of the habits that we were taught in this church really good, vibrant church, full of young people was the daily reading of the Scriptures, but still didn't catch me really until I was in the high school group.
[SPEAKER_02]: And my parents still weren't really going to church.
[SPEAKER_02]: They would eventually come to church with me, and they would eventually give their lives fully to Jesus.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I was pretty on my own.
[SPEAKER_02]: And John Vietervel, Mary John.
[SPEAKER_05]: Tell them that story.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was like the hero, the coolest guy in the Yitz group.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is in the same way.
[SPEAKER_01]: You see, the youth pastor was just like, now he was like, uh,
[SPEAKER_02]: He was in college.
[SPEAKER_05]: He was a couple years older than you.
[SPEAKER_05]: He was probably an 18 or something.
[SPEAKER_05]: Maybe just graduated high school.
[SPEAKER_02]: Probably something like that.
[SPEAKER_05]: Good looking big smile and you know, he's totally, you know, ripped like you book, you know, lifted waves.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's not true, but he, he knew the word of God.
[SPEAKER_05]: He had this godly father that was a prayer.
[SPEAKER_05]: I know we're going to talk about how prayer and Bible study go together.
[SPEAKER_05]: Big time.
[SPEAKER_05]: His dad was like the prayer warrior,
[SPEAKER_05]: But he was just up front.
[SPEAKER_05]: He would sing.
[SPEAKER_05]: He would like, you know, he just got up there and he was mad at you.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's fun to charisma, but tell him that, about that day.
[SPEAKER_02]: And by the way, we just left a video for his 70th birthday.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it questioned his wife.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I told this story.
[SPEAKER_02]: Really?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because he impacted me so much.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I was a shy 15 year old.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was sure John Petervalt had no idea who I was and I don't think he did.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was just vivacious guy.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was passing me on the stairs and he said, hey, so hi, I don't think he's at my name.
[SPEAKER_02]: What's God been teaching you when his word lately?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just broke.
[SPEAKER_02]: Teaching God teaching me.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's worth that was set that might have been a different language.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I must have mumbled something very embarrassed and red-faced, but I tell you what, I went home that day.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just, and I started asking my friends, what is this about God's Word teaching?
[SPEAKER_02]: And this was very a Bible church, so, you know, we brought Bible church.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I went out and got myself the same Bible that John Vueger felt was holding that paper back.
[SPEAKER_02]: Was this Bible?
[UNKNOWN]: No, it was.
[SPEAKER_02]: Was it a living Bible back then?
[SPEAKER_02]: No, it was the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said the way it said
[SPEAKER_02]: I wanted to be able to give John, my motive was I wanted to be able to give this really great looking guy.
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, if he ever asked, I would have never answered, he never asked me again.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think he ever spoke to me again.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the point was that he was his,
[SPEAKER_02]: college guy who actually went to the word every day to hear from God.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's really was like one of what discipleship 101 for me is that you're in the scriptures because you want to meet with God.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it was like we talked about earlier in our kind of pre-discussion, a combination of prayer, a conversant relationship with God as you're reading the scriptures,
[SPEAKER_02]: And for me, with no background or faith, really catching up, I had no solid theology.
[SPEAKER_02]: I could have gone off on any sort of cult at the time, because I didn't have, she didn't.
[SPEAKER_02]: She didn't.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't, but it would have been easy for me too, because I didn't know the scripture.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you had to know the character of God.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, yeah, feel how about you?
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, so the same deal.
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, I grew up in a dead liberal church where I did memorize a 23rd song and a central class I guess because I know it.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: But honestly, I'm not sure if the reverend that I grew up as a little boy under, if he was even saved.
[SPEAKER_05]: He'd been to a liberal seminary that didn't believe that this book is the inspired work of Word of God.
[SPEAKER_05]: He was taught, you know, for instance, he didn't believe that Jesus really fed 5,000 people and performed that miracle.
[SPEAKER_05]: He thought it was a story.
[SPEAKER_05]: He was taught in seminary in a liberal seminary.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's just a story that tells you you could do a lot with a little wet.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have to tell you the Lose and Fish is last night.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a classic Sloan story.
[SPEAKER_01]: This was what I thought you're saying.
[SPEAKER_01]: She literally was trying to tell me, she's like, damn what's that one story again?
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus with the sourdough.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is it again?
[SPEAKER_01]: You mean the Lose and Fish?
[SPEAKER_01]: She's like, oh yeah, they don't call it sourdough.
[SPEAKER_01]: They call it Lose.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's a lot of bread, isn't it?
[SPEAKER_01]: This is last night trying to pray with her and then I was telling her because she gets very, she's very fearful that night I was just explaining to her like, do you understand that you have authority in Jesus?
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you're scared, you can literally say things like Jesus Will you keep me safe or if you're feeling scared and you want to like actually if you're feeling like it's kind of like scary You can actually say like Satan know I'm Jesus is protect me God like you can pray You know you have that authority to pray that
[SPEAKER_01]: And she's like, really?
[SPEAKER_01]: She's like, watch this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Satan, uh, Jesus is coming, so you better go away.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, these are like nighttime things that happen with us.
[SPEAKER_01]: But anyway, it loaves and fish.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's a real story.
[SPEAKER_05]: We weren't taught the Bible because, and on Sunday, they would read a verse and close the book, and then go to the other side of the church and preach a sermon, which I want to after I got saved.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I went back and read some of them and say, no wonder I was confused.
[SPEAKER_05]: So when I landed in a church that
[SPEAKER_05]: top the Bible and the power of the Holy Spirit, it immediately, and once you receive Christ, you receive the Spirit of God.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so then suddenly the Bible comes alive.
[SPEAKER_05]: So the Bible came alive to us, and then you just couldn't get enough of it, because
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, you know, you have to start with this is just not this is not some just book.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's like, you know, second Timothy, three, sixteen says it's God breathed.
[SPEAKER_05]: So it's God's word, you know, so back then we were top.
[SPEAKER_05]: This is God's love letter to you.
[SPEAKER_05]: There was the joke Bible means basic instruction before leaving earth, you know.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's like God's handbook.
[SPEAKER_05]: How to live life.
[SPEAKER_04]: It is.
[SPEAKER_05]: how to have a godly marriage, how to stay sexually pure, how to all these things we were taught, go to the word of God, what's the word of God say?
[SPEAKER_05]: But it wasn't because you have to, it was because you get to.
[SPEAKER_05]: And this church was filled with the spirit and people were carrying bibles and you kind of caught it like you were caught up in it and it was the thing to do.
[SPEAKER_05]: When she went away to high school camp with like 400 high schoolers,
[SPEAKER_05]: They were all getting up and going sitting around the lake with their Bible open, having morning devotions.
[SPEAKER_05]: She just said, what's everybody doing?
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, what's that even?
[SPEAKER_05]: So we got caught up in that.
[SPEAKER_05]: I got caught up in it.
[SPEAKER_05]: I was a college guy when I finally landed there, so I'm just so grateful because it marked us that we landed in a church that truly realized this book is God breathe and this has been given to us as a gift from the Lord.
[SPEAKER_05]: God speaks through creation all kinds of other ways, but we know this is just worth.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, so it changed us personally before we ever met each other.
[SPEAKER_05]: God saved us and then had both led us both to dig into the word.
[SPEAKER_02]: So then that was our early walk with God in the 70s.
[SPEAKER_02]: But then a switch began to happen that we noticed that sometimes happens after revival.
[SPEAKER_02]: Revivals are messy.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, people are coming to Christ all over the place, bringing all their worldliness was burned again.
[SPEAKER_02]: in with them and some of their unfortunate language and habits and all that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So eventually somebody wants to clean up all that untidyness and put structure around it and organize it and that's not bad.
[SPEAKER_02]: But often it can kind of just squelps the life of the spirit that he was raising up and doing such a
[SPEAKER_02]: compelling way at the time.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we noticed later is in in the somewhere in the 80s and even in the 90s it seemed like it went from you're in the scripture to me God you're in the scripture as like felt that the love letter of God to you like you're eager you want to hear from God too.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is a discipline that you need to do every day and here's the way you need to do it.
[SPEAKER_02]: You need to follow these
[SPEAKER_02]: ten steps to happiness, ten steps to, you know, yeah, and then a little bit later, women's Bible studies started doing something really good.
[SPEAKER_02]: They were really teaching the scriptures, but they replaced what had been morning devotions with morning homework.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, to do your five days of homework.
[SPEAKER_02]: And like women's Bible study fellowship at the time, which was just rich,
[SPEAKER_02]: well-meaning, but if you didn't do your homework, you couldn't participate the next week in the Bible, so you couldn't speak up in that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this moment.
[SPEAKER_02]: So all of a sudden, now women instead of having their devotions as a time to meet with and hear God, their devotions were filling in the blanks to do this homework.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, good and intensive.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, and then I saw people
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, inevitably, it becomes homework.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, this is, and this is, you're bridging the gap perfectly.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was going to say, because you guys had, and why I wanted to ask you, the history is because so often things start out so beautifully, and they're authentic, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, no one's forcing you to have to do this.
[SPEAKER_01]: This was just like,
[SPEAKER_01]: you were coming alive, it was your experience.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think anyone in my generation, we've had similar experiences with different things.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think it's easy because when we grew up, was when your kids were, you know, were the same age as your kids.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was that time when it was like this raged gap of beautiful, but also,
[SPEAKER_01]: diving in the legalism and have to.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I kid you not.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was just hanging out with a bunch of buddies and I think the legalism hang over is so deep where they almost all feel super guilty if they're not reading the scriptures daily.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, I would say,
[SPEAKER_01]: I think you're missing out.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think guilt or shame is what God's using to motivate you to do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I also think that there's huge advantages to doing that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's interesting how all of them kind of even held and hold this almost like this hangover of like I'm just not doing enough.
[SPEAKER_01]: I need to do more.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just don't think that that's God's heart towards it at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's invitation.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's blessing.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's
[SPEAKER_01]: Wanting to meet with you wanting to help us.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like you said meet.
[SPEAKER_05]: I was just I'm so That you said wanting to meet with you.
[SPEAKER_05]: So yes, so it's you know like I I have my I read through the Bible in every year Not because I have to I love it.
[SPEAKER_05]: I have my chart right here But it's not just to check it off, you know, it's to mean for we call it Reading the scriptures to meet with God in the scriptures.
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, so like Jesus got up early in the morning look five 16 I think it is and went out of the wilderness to pray.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, just been time with his father
[SPEAKER_05]: Now he is the word of God, but yet he knew the Scriptures.
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, you know, Matthew 4 and Luke 4 when he goes into the desert to be tempted, he quotes Scripture.
[SPEAKER_05]: So it's a Jesus who is the word of God, knew the word of God.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so like, but he went up early to meet with God.
[SPEAKER_05]: And this is a Diane, it's such a beautiful example, and that she's usually performing not today.
[SPEAKER_05]: She wasn't.
[SPEAKER_05]: But I
[SPEAKER_05]: But normally she's the way before me, and she's just feasting on the word, but she's not just, you know, do an Eastern meditation, you know, but emptying my mind, you know, she's filling her mind with the scriptures and talking to God listening to God.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so I think we, we were, we came to know the Lord that way, but then it did get kind of more Bible study oriented and drifted into more practical stuff, but I think I just maybe think of, remember that the saints of old before us when there was
[SPEAKER_05]: There was literally not only no iPhones, there was no electricity.
[SPEAKER_05]: They wouldn't get up early and they called it the morning watch.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm gonna get up early and I'm gonna watch for God with the Scriptures.
[SPEAKER_01]: Was it also to watch the sunrise?
[SPEAKER_01]: or no, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_05]: I preach the sermon on it so long ago.
[SPEAKER_05]: I have to go find out both.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'd have to google it now.
[SPEAKER_05]: But you know, they call it the morning watch.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: And it was getting up early in the morning as Jesus did to spend time with the Father.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so you see, this is what we do in the scriptures.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's exactly right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's why I want to move.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to move to these frameworks.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think this framework's helpful.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let me just highlight a couple things I think are super important.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some people say I have devotions.
[SPEAKER_01]: I read my Bible.
[SPEAKER_01]: I pray.
[SPEAKER_01]: What we're going to talk about is the idea of defining like if someone was to say I'm having devotions as an example Or I'm reading the scriptures.
[SPEAKER_01]: We want to lay out what that actually means because it's not just reading through a chapter or reading through To check off the list that and some people like it
[SPEAKER_01]: really it's pick your own your own play like some people love going through and checking off the list if that's helpful awesome for some people that's death.
[SPEAKER_01]: So don't do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I also think that the point is to have a regular habit.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's all this work now around habit and habit formation and how habits make you or break you and so many folks are concerned or wondering why can I not do these certain things in life, whether that is things like create a regular rhythm
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of it's exercise.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all over the place, but I think it's important to highlight that your habits Are the things that change who you are?
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you become like Jesus?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the the habits that you allow and you invite into your life every single day to help make you who you become It's those macro decisions every single day.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sorry micro decisions
[SPEAKER_01]: Every single day that lead up to a macro life, and so this is one of those micro daily decisions that I believe transforms people in the deepest of ways And so we just want to explain what we mean by that and we want to walk through five different things that we actually have identified that
[SPEAKER_01]: really encompass what we mean because it's not just reading through the scriptures.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not just prayer.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not meditation alone.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all those things.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm going to go through the structure you guys ready to go.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: There you go.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the first one is to when you when you find a time like the actually pre-finding the time,
[SPEAKER_01]: find a place that you like being, I think that's also important.
[SPEAKER_01]: Find a time that you can hopefully not be too interrupted with little ones we understand that that might mean you're up really early.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know for Elizabeth and I were still in the stage where it's like if we want uninterrupted time, we will sacrifice sleep for it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're at the stage where we sacrifice sleep to just be alone.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and not with each other just meaning like we can wake up and actually have a space.
[SPEAKER_01]: So find a place that's comfortable, find a place that
[SPEAKER_01]: honor that like find a place that you really like it's beautiful I think Diane you're great at that find a place you like and then when it comes to the scriptures have have a journal potentially for some I know for me I have a journal and then I also have the word I usually also have a book that I'm reading through usually a spiritual type book that I'm reading through.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that would be just like the pre, but the first thing is to read prayerfully.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not to just open the scriptures, read the thing close, it wouldn't be like cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I know I asked my son, I was like, hey son, did you read?
[SPEAKER_01]: I asked Duke this morning, hey can you read the scriptures before you go school?
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's like, yeah, I mean, he was done in like,
[SPEAKER_01]: 30 seconds, 40.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, this is not what we're talking about.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's 15.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's on the way to school.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there's a lot of this a process.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not going to happen overnight.
[SPEAKER_01]: All that said, though, that's not what we're talking about.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're not talking about just reading a scripture mean like I did the duty.
[SPEAKER_01]: So read prayerfully.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's talk about what that means for you fill in Diane.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can share some stuff in a little bit.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: One thing I don't think it means is read somebody else's take on the description.
[SPEAKER_02]: Although both fill in I do that when we're done with our own private listening.
[SPEAKER_02]: Both of us will take either streams of the desert, are you doing that right now?
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm doing three.
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_05]: Spurgeons, evening and morning.
[SPEAKER_05]: Shrooms in the desert and Amy Carmichael exes of the night.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have the luxury of time.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have time.
[SPEAKER_01]: All those people in the show notes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those three devotional's you're doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, great.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, so those are great.
[SPEAKER_02]: In fact, I think it was Amy Carmichael's, you know, she would die in 1960, I think, or 59.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was her way of reading the scriptures that was written down in her devotional that really probably prompted me to read the scriptures maybe more from a woman's viewpoint and really putting my whole womanly self, not just
[SPEAKER_02]: But for me, for both of us, we start off actually reading the Bible for somebody else.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, we don't go straight to somebody's common, you know, devotion like I'm looking for me.
[SPEAKER_05]: But maybe even the highlight after, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe the highlight though, that that's not legalism, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, I'm saying, I'm saying, that's not for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm saying, some people can hear this and go, well, I've got it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm just highlighting for everybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: You've got a, that's your conviction and you've learned over time that that's the best for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: But there's a reason for it.
[SPEAKER_02]: For both of us, we want to hear from the Holy Spirit.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, it's like, I will also want to hear somebody else's take, but it's almost like eating dessert first.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's so much easier to read an Amy Carmichael devotional for me than it is to actually sink myself my whole self into the scripture.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, that's dessert.
[SPEAKER_02]: I go for the vegetables and the meat and vegetables first just for my own.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to encounter God myself.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so that's important to me.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: How about you?
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, I'm just going to say, you know, devotions to me, you know, you said, well, I listen to a song.
[SPEAKER_05]: No, no.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes, songs can inspire me.
[SPEAKER_05]: And if it's a biblical song that's a scripture verse, of course.
[SPEAKER_05]: But I think what we're both saying is that the Word of God is what we are to meditate on primary.
[SPEAKER_05]: And then other books can help us.
[SPEAKER_05]: And devotions and people's take can help us, but if we just did that,
[SPEAKER_05]: and didn't delve into this.
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, Jesus said, man, show not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, it's like you need it for your food.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: So I think that's what we're saying.
[SPEAKER_05]: This is our daily bread, you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: And because I wanted to speak to me in the scriptures.
[SPEAKER_02]: And honestly, what I hear is not a lot of
[SPEAKER_02]: prophetic, kind of mystical things.
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of it is something that I'll be reading in the Scriptures may be.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm in first Corinthians and I get to first Corinthians 13 and I'm reading.
[SPEAKER_02]: Love is this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Love is patient.
[SPEAKER_02]: Love keeps no record of wrongs and all of a sudden that really, we call it conviction sounds like such a prison term.
[SPEAKER_02]: It feels like freedom in the moment.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, ah, yes, I've been impatient.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've gotten resentful again.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just, ah, I need you, Father.
[SPEAKER_02]: So to me, conviction feels like freedom, we can have to come up with the better word than conviction.
[SPEAKER_05]: I know what you're talking about.
[SPEAKER_05]: This week, and I got to go over to a church in Corvallis or again, talk to a bunch of leaders.
[SPEAKER_05]: you're not saying that you're being disciplined by God.
[SPEAKER_05]: What you're talking about is you're being disciplined by God.
[SPEAKER_05]: You're being disciplined by God.
[SPEAKER_05]: What you're talking about is you're being disciplined by God.
[SPEAKER_05]: You're being disciplined by God.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're being disciplined by God.
[SPEAKER_05]: You're being disciplined by God.
[SPEAKER_05]: go to the scriptures and you're corrected, but it's like it's not like a rejection it's not like a accusation, it's like a correction and you feel the love of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I agree with that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just think how you said it probably made a lot of people laugh.
[SPEAKER_01]: at you and with you, but that's a weird way to say it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, they can laugh at you, but you can edit it out.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm kidding.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to edit it out.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm saying though, the point you're making is true.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's true.
[SPEAKER_01]: Your the point is so true that it is not this offensive.
[SPEAKER_01]: you don't feel worse after.
[SPEAKER_02]: You feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you feel like you
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm meeting face-to-face with the father who loves me and understands me, like I don't even understand myself.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he reveals me to myself in the most beautiful of way, so.
[SPEAKER_01]: So reading prayer, reading prayerfully, I think that also is like the idea of praying the scriptures.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, because I think a lot of folks will ask, well, how do I pray?
[SPEAKER_01]: What do I pray?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think one of the best ways to pray is to, I mean, the Psalms are great for this, especially.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's turning those phrases into prayers and turning those, you know, we have a daily text message that goes out.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can also, I think the link can be in the show notes there too.
[SPEAKER_01]: The daily text that goes out.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think if you're like, where do we even start?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, every single day, intentional sends a text.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a scripture with one brief thought.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you can simply use that, you like use that for your prayer, and simply just be present to whatever a God is like leading you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And but I think that's one of the most effective ways to prays to start praying in the Scriptures and just make those Psalms or those phrases your own prayers.
[SPEAKER_05]: to me reading prayerfully like every morning I we've got stuff we don't know what to do about it We're thinking how do I handle my child or you know I was harsh with I ain't you know And I but when you when you pray about those things in the scriptures, I mean how many times have I said Lord Show me something here
[SPEAKER_05]: that will help in this, I'm seeing this in my heart in my life, I want to get it out, whatever, and God, as you're reading, he's feeding you, and then suddenly something will jump out from his word.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, say that was for me this morning.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, you know, yeah, that's prayerfully, I think.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I was just going to say I think it's interesting because when you say read prayerfully and read read, you know, there's another one next, but read prayerfully, you're praying in the Scripture as you're taking time to really unburden your soul to Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that that's a visual I always
[SPEAKER_01]: feel or at least visualize is sitting there and the act of prayer is really unburdening your soul to Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's taking a moment to pause and to say, I have all of this stuff that will just build up over time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think anybody that's wanting to grow in this activity of prayer, of reading scriptures, of meditation, it's so important because this has a buildup effect like the
[SPEAKER_01]: Almost the gunk of our soul just builds up.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you do not have a, I mean, for me, daily multiple times a day outlet, I become the worst type of person.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I don't have that opportunity to process and really unburden my soul to God, it just becomes so ugly.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that has to be not only just through reading, it has to be prayerfully, it has to be thoughtful with him.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And specifically, I mean, I at one time of my life when my kids were probably elementary and high school started keeping a prayer journal and was just filled with scriptures that I was praying for my kids.
[SPEAKER_02]: So every morning, I had it next to me, it was just a
[SPEAKER_02]: three-wing binder kind of the thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'd stumble upon a verse and write it down and write who I was praying this verse over as my kids.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I came upon these beautiful prayers.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm the scripture is full of prayers.
[SPEAKER_02]: And like Ephesians has two magnificent prayers.
[SPEAKER_02]: Paul is praying for these people.
[SPEAKER_02]: He really loves and he can't be near them.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's like he's a father praying for
[SPEAKER_02]: and he writes down for them what he's praying.
[SPEAKER_02]: And like one of them is in the first chapter of Ephesians.
[SPEAKER_02]: I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened.
[SPEAKER_02]: I pray this especially for my first two that I could see they were coming to the point where they had to make their faith their own, but it just hadn't quite hooked them all the way yet.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I knew that that was it.
[SPEAKER_02]: dangerous time of faith for them that they were now getting more and more autonomy as teenagers and I wanted that I wanted their walk with God to be their own, their own conviction.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I started praying that the eyes of John Mark and Rebecca's hearts would be enlightened so that they would know what is the hope of his calling.
[SPEAKER_02]: What are the riches of the glory of it is heritage?
[SPEAKER_01]: There you go.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how you grew.
[SPEAKER_02]: You've found this greatness of its power.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I had experienced that, but they hadn't yet.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how you've created that.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the best example.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're using, I mean, like, so just take what exactly what they ended and use that as your, I mean, use that verse.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, this verse is another one in Colossians.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just,
[SPEAKER_02]: especially Paul's letters.
[SPEAKER_02]: He praised a lot and it taught me how to pray for my teenagers when I was otherwise so shallow I was praying that they're behavior would change.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're the attitudes would change.
[SPEAKER_02]: But God knew that this is what needed to happen, that their attitudes and behavior wasn't going to change until he had all of their hearts.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, I just, I wasn't gonna read this, but I just thought of Psalm 19.
[SPEAKER_05]: So you were just talking about what happens in your life, for if you don't.
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, I think that's true of all of us.
[SPEAKER_05]: Like, yes.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's because there's that the scripture does this beautiful soothing cutting work.
[SPEAKER_05]: But Psalm 19, it says, the law of the Lord is perfect restoring the soul, right?
[SPEAKER_05]: It's your storage soul.
[SPEAKER_05]: It does.
[SPEAKER_05]: The testimony, the Lord is pure, making wise the simple.
[SPEAKER_05]: Like, oh, duh.
[SPEAKER_05]: That was supposed to do.
[SPEAKER_05]: The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.
[SPEAKER_05]: There's a joy that's found there.
[SPEAKER_05]: The commandment of the Lord is pure and lightening the eyes, and the ghost just goes on.
[SPEAKER_05]: The judgment is the fearless.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's all talking about the scriptures.
[SPEAKER_05]: They're more desirable than gold.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's sweeter than honey.
[SPEAKER_05]: And then this is the this banking part.
[SPEAKER_05]: This is what I meant by that was more over by them.
[SPEAKER_05]: God's word.
[SPEAKER_05]: God's commands.
[SPEAKER_05]: the servant is warned and keeping them there's great reward.
[SPEAKER_05]: So he warns you not because he's bad at you, but because he wants you to experience him.
[SPEAKER_05]: He is our reward.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so anyway, it's all there's on 19 and and then it let he's just keep me back from presumptuous sin.
[SPEAKER_05]: So it's like it keeps me from going off into the flesh or off into myself.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think John Wesley talked about this idea of social holiness and I remember reading that one time and being like, what is he talking about social holiness?
[SPEAKER_01]: And he was basically talking about how when you have an active prayer life and you have an active time, a daily habits of reading scripture, understanding basically putting your framework in line with Jesus' heart,
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a level of holiness that comes even at a social level.
[SPEAKER_01]: So think about how many people you know that are inspirational and also maybe sometimes they probably can vict you when you go into a space and like actually I don't actually watch that stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like right now it's socially very acceptable to watch so much garbage in all sorts of circles.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like stuff that's really honestly not helpful to us and this isn't legalism.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is just fact.
[SPEAKER_01]: We all know this.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's a level of this activity that brings about a social holiness and where you call everyone around you up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's that idea where you're like, I'm going to live in line with who God has made me to be and line with flourishing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that literally brings people to life in so many different ways.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: uh... he was a social revolutionary like think about him his holiness led he's like this is the way to do it this is the way to live so we actually take part in changing the culture around us there's a social holiness that happens in us when we actually begin to partake in this happened in a daily way who did you say said that john wasley
[SPEAKER_05]: John Wesley.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: There's another John.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: You wrote Pilgrim's promise?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, you were going to quote somebody.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: Because he, on his Bible, he had on the top of his Bible either this book will keep you from centers and will keep you from this book.
[SPEAKER_05]: In other words, he knew this book is going to, and it's going to affect what you just said.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's going to help me live a life the way God wants me to live it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_05]: And if I don't,
[SPEAKER_05]: If I my life isn't right, I'm not going to want to pick that you know to set like if your heart isn't right You're not like, oh, let me get to the Bible.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it's because it's convicting.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of Unburdening.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, yeah, okay, so we got read prayerfully and again lots of examples on that We keep going, but the second is read carefully and that's an important one And maybe a catchphrase with that or maybe an add-on would be read with empty hands
[SPEAKER_01]: read with that posture of openness, often we come to prayer to times of reading within agenda.
[SPEAKER_01]: So read carefully.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's talk about what that looks like for you guys.
[SPEAKER_01]: What does that look like practically to read carefully?
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean for me it's I'm reading the Word of God and so this is where I'm going to get to know God who he is and the better you know what's the thing that in John Mark's book God has a name what you believe about God is the most important thing about yourself.
[SPEAKER_05]: So this is where I get to know him and so
[SPEAKER_05]: When I read it, I want to be careful and not just go in and read it kind of randomly.
[SPEAKER_05]: So the verse that I love, there's just came to me this week and actually when I was getting ready to talk to some of these leaders was a second Timothy 215.
[SPEAKER_05]: where Paul, he's talking about how it's fruitless or argue with people about words, or different issues.
[SPEAKER_05]: He said, don't wrangle about words as useless.
[SPEAKER_05]: It only leads to ruin.
[SPEAKER_05]: Be diligent, this is second Timothy 215, be diligent to present yourself.
[SPEAKER_05]: approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, handling accurately, or carefully, the word of truth.
[SPEAKER_05]: So in other words, part of my role as a disciple of Jesus, there's a diligence, it's not a chore.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's a fun work to do, but it's a diligent work to do.
[SPEAKER_05]: I want to be careful that I don't misinterpret the scripture.
[SPEAKER_05]: and then misapply it to my kids or that's somebody's life up because I told them God said this when you didn't actually say it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Have you heard that joke going?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's so funny.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can do all things through a verse taken out of context.
[SPEAKER_01]: Have you heard this?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're laughing, but yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's, I mean, that is a big problem in our day.
[SPEAKER_01]: Where people will think of phrase or an idea.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like a bumper sticker kind of a theology.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's funny way of saying that the Bible study method, if you take the text out of context, all you have is the con.
[SPEAKER_04]: And you know what I'm saying?
[SPEAKER_04]: There you go.
[SPEAKER_04]: Your way of saying it's funny, you're like, it's gambling.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's not mine.
[SPEAKER_05]: But I've seen it mess people up, where they just, they're looking for something and they take a verse and they completely misapply it.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's not what God meant when he said it to those people and he meant something by it.
[SPEAKER_05]: So who's he talking to?
[SPEAKER_05]: What did he say and how does it apply to me?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, because the reading carefully part, because the empty hands leads to the next one, which is read humbly, so we'll talk about that in a second.
[SPEAKER_01]: But there's an aposture where we have to come to Jesus
[SPEAKER_01]: and assume that we might actually not have all of this figured out, which is not necessarily a fun thing for many in our generation to embrace or, but I think if you're a mentally sane person, you recognize, you don't have all the answers.
[SPEAKER_01]: You, I mean, you're struggling, all of us are struggling, we're trying to figure it out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Recently, I was talking about or reading something about praying for your family or praying for kids,
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was an interesting cause the challenge was we often just bring what we assume God wants us to do to our prayers.
[SPEAKER_01]: That our prayerless becomes what we think God would want to do, but a couple of questions to ask yourself maybe about your marriage, about your kids, about your job, like with your kids, why did God create my kids in the first place and what call has he put on their life?
[SPEAKER_01]: So instead of saying God, I want my kids to do this.
[SPEAKER_01]: God, why did you create my kids in the first place?
[SPEAKER_01]: So maybe some of you are forcing your kids into activities, but maybe that sports or theater or other things.
[SPEAKER_01]: There may be not suited for, because that's what you assume is just the best for them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's nothing like wrong with wanting to encourage and do all that type of stuff of creating pathways for them.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think the better thing, man, is to ask, why did God create Duke in Scarlett and Bernie and Sloan?
[SPEAKER_01]: What's their purpose on this planet?
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a lot more work, by the way.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a lot more discovery, but I've been finding in the world of taking things carefully.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's that open-handedness, like, God's word has something to say to that that I might not know, has something to say to me that maybe I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the carefully piece, as you guys are even mentioning, is so encouraging because we don't have to have all the answers.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, that's the part to me that is really exciting.
[SPEAKER_05]: Part of the carefully part is, you know, we, you were going to mention meditating, I'm sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, that's part of the careful don't you think?
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, big time.
[SPEAKER_05]: Where you're chewing on it and thinking about what is God really saying, you know?
[SPEAKER_05]: Are you going to talk about that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Meditation.
[SPEAKER_01]: We can talk about it right now.
[SPEAKER_05]: Because you were going to say something about it.
[SPEAKER_05]: I was going to read the scripture.
[SPEAKER_05]: When you said you were going to, we're going to talk about meditating on scripture.
[SPEAKER_05]: I thought a Joshua 1.8.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_05]: This book of the law, we're talking about God's word again, shall not depart from your mouth.
[SPEAKER_05]: So we are to speak the word.
[SPEAKER_05]: There's a power just reading the word like ideally out loud.
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, you know, even, you know, even by yourself whispering it out loud.
[SPEAKER_05]: Sometimes it's like there's then you're speaking it, seeing it, hearing it, and actually if you do that long enough, you kind of memorize it.
[SPEAKER_05]: But yes.
[SPEAKER_05]: So he says here,
[SPEAKER_05]: this book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it.
[SPEAKER_05]: Day and night, here's the careful part, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it, not because God wants you to be disciplined.
[SPEAKER_05]: For then, you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's God saying, I want to bless you.
[SPEAKER_05]: I want you to be fruitful.
[SPEAKER_05]: in your life, and then to your spouse, and then to your children, because you're filled with my spirit, and you're filled with my word, and now you've got to see help people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's careful.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's careful.
[SPEAKER_01]: The other night I was just going to say, speaking to that point of reading, I don't know what you know, people might assume we do as a family.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the idea that we're like reading scripture at every moment to our family our kids, that's not true.
[SPEAKER_01]: The idea that we're spending each meal time and it's just the glorious experience of prayer and reading scripture.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like our family's like your family, which means there's emotions and feelings and we're like, hey, let's pray and I want to pray.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do the yesterday.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to pray.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like.
[SPEAKER_01]: our kids are just like your kids, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're at this space where we're, you know, it's Sabbath dinner and we're sitting down and we have this little like mini fire pit that like can burn in your house.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I'm talking about?
[SPEAKER_01]: If anyone, yeah, you see them.
[SPEAKER_01]: But so we like this little mini fire pit in the middle of the table and and it's, and that's fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, fire always fun for the kids.
[SPEAKER_01]: They love it.
[SPEAKER_01]: All is an everything, but between fingers and forks are all going in the fire.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, hey, to start our Sabbath, I know we don't normally do this because we don't, because our kids have short attention spans.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're all like hungry.
[SPEAKER_01]: They want to eat.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're not at the stage where everyone's just at a very calm, mature, respectable stage.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was like, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to pray.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to let you start eating to act, so you can be active with your hands and your mouths and all this stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I'm going to read Matthew 7.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to add any commentary to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just going to read it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was so interesting because I just told them I was like I'm not adding it.
[SPEAKER_01]: This isn't a Bible site.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is just reading the scripture over you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, I do this very infrequently.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is not like something we do all the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would love to do it more with our family and our dynamics.
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't always work out.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I was doing that and it was so interesting to me how just reading the scriptures out loud captured their attention in interesting ways and brought up all of these different questions.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, I wasn't asking any questions.
[SPEAKER_01]: This wasn't like, hey, this is a quiz.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was just like, I'm going to read this and I'll let it hang.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they talked about it for probably five or ten minutes and then they actually, they got bored and got on to something else.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it was interesting to me about the carefully part is just taking a moment to just hear scripture out loud or just even to take a phrase into your mind throughout the day.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what we're talking about.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're just saying, say it out loud again, memorize a little portion.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just even take a phrase into your day.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes I'll take a phrase that really stuck with me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll write it in my journal in a few times throughout the day.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll look at it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's what we're talking about when
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was a reminder to me at that dinner that as we're even just speaking that over our kids they take these little phrases or little ideas and if in one sense, that's why we memorize scripture, but that's what helps stick with them in a deeper way.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm so proud of you that you did that because I didn't do enough of that like, you know, I think we got asked it up at a Q and R sometimes we got it after I said I wish I'd done it more.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_05]: So it's just something about reading the word of God because Isaiah says God's word goes out and it never returns void.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_05]: But that accomplishing his purpose.
[SPEAKER_05]: So it's going to accomplish something.
[SPEAKER_05]: And you remember your brother in last year.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, right.
[SPEAKER_05]: So I got a Rebecca like his best friend Steve.
[SPEAKER_05]: He used to our Steve, I call him.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes, to go over to his friend Steve's for dinner.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: When they were in high school, because the mom was such a great cook, and then they'd get up ready to go do their French, you know, go hang out with the dad would stop them.
[SPEAKER_05]: And he said, no, at our dinner table, we read a chapter, we just read a scripture chapter scripture.
[SPEAKER_05]: You got to tell me one thing you heard, and Steve said at the time, he didn't, you know, okay.
[SPEAKER_05]: But now he, I remember him saying before they had Ellis,
[SPEAKER_05]: when I'm a dad, I'm gonna do that.
[SPEAKER_05]: So I just think it's so good that you said that because even if it wasn't a whole chapter, it was like five verses.
[SPEAKER_05]: I was that every time we did sit down, we read five verses from Proverbs or something, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So now what we did do for the early years in elementary and found more difficult with teenagers.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we're as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: is that we had this sort of loose rule between us.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Kids didn't know it was a rule that every night that we were home, we would have family Bible time.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was usually 20 minutes.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, something like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe 20 minutes read the picture Bible to our kids.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, you can see Bertie and son, which is love that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, they do, and they do, and they love, yeah, the Bible out for kids is fun to read them because it's interactive, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: But then way back in,
[SPEAKER_02]: the 1800s.
[SPEAKER_02]: We want to tell him a little bit about Charles Spurgeon.
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, Charles Spurgeon.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, he was called the Prince of Preachers, and he preached it as the Tabernacle in London, and he became world famous.
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, this is before, you know, airplanes.
[SPEAKER_05]: and he was the prince of preachers.
[SPEAKER_02]: And remember why they called him the prince of preachers is because he would actually preach at the in the vernacular of the people he was talking to.
[SPEAKER_02]: So people came instead of this high lofty theology.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was like right where they lived in their everyday life.
[SPEAKER_05]: and down underneath where he was preaching in the boiler room that kept the room warm people were praying yeah always and and so was you would go there and just be fed but but that americans would take a ship across the Atlantic ocean
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, partly to see London, but you would never miss being there on a Sunday to hear Charles Spurgeon.
[SPEAKER_05]: And, um, you know, and that's one of the devotional I'm reading right now.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, some people wouldn't like it because it's a little too old English, but I can get through all that because I see the depth of this man.
[SPEAKER_05]: But anyway, you're going to read something you said.
[SPEAKER_05]: The treasury of David is a three volume or one massive volume.
[SPEAKER_05]: His commentary on the songs.
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_05]: And it's sermons that he, you know, he preached to the songs.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I stumbled upon this when our children were really young.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think John Mark was around six.
[SPEAKER_02]: So Matthew wasn't born yet.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it just captured my imagination now you have to understand this talking is old English.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it will sound a little funny to you and life was different then.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we have to adapt to our real life.
[SPEAKER_02]: But he's talking about that the more a parental teaching the better in families.
[SPEAKER_02]: that ministers and what he called Sabbath school teachers were never meant to be substitutes for mothers, tears, and fathers prayers.
[SPEAKER_02]: In other words, it caught my imagination then, oh my gosh, this is my responsibility, our responsibility, ability, and really was the beginning of us saying we have to be intentional about making disciples of our own kids.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then he goes on.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is the picture.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just love the picture.
[SPEAKER_02]: You get almost like a Norman Rockwell kind of an idea that, you know, we don't even have fireplaces.
[SPEAKER_02]: We turned our fireplace on with a button these days, but listen to this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Around the fire side, fathers should repeat not only the Bible records, but the deeds of the martyrs and reformers and more over the dealings of the Lord with themselves, both in Providence and Grace.
[SPEAKER_02]: What happy hours and pleasant evenings have children had at their parents' knees as they have listened to some sweet story of old.
[SPEAKER_02]: Reader, if you have children, mind you do not fail in this duty.
[SPEAKER_02]: And even though we are not sitting around the fireplace every evening having a happy little time with our children, I think that it sparked me a desire and an imagination for could we create this little safe kind of holy spot for our children, where from a very young age before their questioning all of our.
[SPEAKER_02]: values and motives and ways of speaking and everything else while they still just think you're their hero.
[SPEAKER_02]: Could we create an easy spiritual relationship with our kids around the scriptures?
[SPEAKER_02]: So that around God's scriptures we're all children of God together.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we tried to create that with family Bible time by making it really fun and really relevant to the kids and super simple and not very long.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a key.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Those are the keys.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean include hot chocolate.
[SPEAKER_05]: I love hot chocolate.
[SPEAKER_05]: Make it fun.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're good.
[SPEAKER_05]: You're good at making things fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: like all those like curriculums, like I'd rather just have them fill out the workbook.
[SPEAKER_02]: But my kids would have felt against that.
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was just trying to make the scriptures sweet to our children.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well let's let's move these last three.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're all kind of connected, but I do want to at least touch on them.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we first talked about reading prayerfully, praying in the scriptures.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's important reading carefully.
[SPEAKER_01]: We come with open hands.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I already mentioned the third one read humbly and just a few thoughts on that, which means we're ready to obey.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: That we can come to the scriptures knowing that God is God.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're not now.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is not popular right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is actually, it's interesting to talk to even my son about authority.
[SPEAKER_01]: Authorities such an interesting thing right now because he was raised with authority.
[SPEAKER_01]: We talk about authority primarily because we establish authority as parents.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we also ultimately do that, not because we're trying to be domineering in all the negative parts of authority.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a good sense.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a good part of authority that's safety and beautiful, especially when that authority is trusted and kind and loving.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he is noticing with all of his friends how...
[SPEAKER_01]: anti-authority, they are because they just really don't have a lot of authority in their lives.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so if their parents aren't giving the authority, then when teachers come to give authority, these kids do not even know what to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's been noticing, like, sometimes I just have to say, good job or respect the teacher for a second.
[SPEAKER_01]: And like, I'm on their good side.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, I could imagine.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, if yours used to kids pushing back when you're authority all day,
[SPEAKER_01]: But anyway, it's that idea that we come humbly, that we don't know it all, and that we actually are saying, Jesus, I'm trusting your way, which means I might not understand, trusting the Lord with all your heart, the not on your own understanding, and all your ways acknowledge Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: He will attract your path, Proverbs 35 and 6, really clear.
[SPEAKER_05]: So yeah, yeah, that's great.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, and I think at first Peter humble yourself there for under the mighty hand of God, like yes, so he's God created the universe and spoke and into existence so we come humbly.
[SPEAKER_05]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: And pride and pride not only destroys you, it also blocks communication with God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like God's not going to be speaking to you in a way that you really need.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think if you come with that observation, I got this for good.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the use for God as opposed.
[SPEAKER_01]: to the practice.
[SPEAKER_05]: So if I think the God had made the universe who's outside of time, who knows everything, who wants to bless me, I don't want him opposed to me.
[SPEAKER_05]: So but in humility, he gives you grace.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so, you know, we need to come humbly and sometimes come humbly means you got to confess you're bad out here and I know I have to get a lot.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, the things I've stumbled upon recently in some of the spiritual formation teachings that I think goes way back, but as a child of the 70s, I didn't catch on to it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is these things they call breath pairs?
[SPEAKER_02]: Where you adopt a breath pair, it kind of inhale, exhale, and ideally scripture is great, but sometimes just a simple prayer.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I stumbled upon this
[SPEAKER_02]: read, I don't know how many concerts of time, but it's just a phrase at a verse four.
[SPEAKER_02]: Lord, you know it all.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so it has become a breath pair for more from me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Lord, I inhale, when I come with a question or I'm frustrated or I don't understand, Lord,
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it is so soothing to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can trust because before that it says, even before there's a word on my tongue, behold, Lord, you know it all.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the whole song is about how well he knows me and that he made us the way he made us.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's easier than to take a scripture like that and make it a prayer.
[SPEAKER_02]: Lord, you know it all.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's I think that's a great example of what it looks like to read humbly.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we have read expectantly, fourthly, read expectantly.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's that idea that you are anticipating or actually ready for God to meet with you, like having an attitude that he is going to actually speak through his word, through prayer, through meditation, through just taking time to unburden your soul.
[SPEAKER_02]: and it's the opposite of being bored, and there have been times when the discipline of it has kept me at it, but where I've had to confess, God, I'm bored in the world, something's dull in your life's spirit, and he loves to hear you dance of that prayer too, but sometimes it is just,
[SPEAKER_02]: day in and day out.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what habits are, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Habits are not dependent on whether you get a rush every single time.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's habit is you know it's the best thing for you and the long run.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: I was just going to say, you know, being older.
[SPEAKER_05]: I wanted to give you an expectantly.
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't have to think about that.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm expecting God to speak because he's spoken so many times.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: I think we've all experienced that.
[SPEAKER_05]: I know God's going to say something, and then sometimes it takes a while.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, you're waiting and you're waiting, well, it wasn't in that chapter and, you know, you're praying and you're, you know, but I think I think we always expect like.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I hope so.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's okay if you don't, but if there's a time where we don't, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was going to say, you know, your life is a story, and it's a great reminder that stories unfold over time.
[SPEAKER_01]: and our job is to really stay in the story.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now that's your story right now might be in the really dark part where it's really hard.
[SPEAKER_01]: Stay in the story, you know, the times that we're talking about there's like the life and the interaction and all the different things that happen in one person's life, good and bad.
[SPEAKER_01]: you're going to go through seasons where you're expecting and it's really not as much as you'd hope.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're not receiving as much as you maybe even feel like you need.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think the whole point is to remember your story unfolds over time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every day is not going to be a mountain top experience and every day is not going to be even when you are expecting.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think sometimes God just gives a word or a phrase he gives you what you need for the day, our job is to show up and then to be okay if for whatever reason it doesn't blow our minds like we expected that it's okay because we're going to come back tomorrow and maybe that will be the day and we're going to come back you know the next day and maybe that will be the day and I think it's expected not just in the moment by moment but also
[SPEAKER_01]: in the whole of your story that over the whole of your life, as your story in your life and fold over time, God's going to meet you in the whole of your life, in your story.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that story means that there's highs and lows.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, expectantly, lastly, and fill out of this one I'm glad he did, read joyfully.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why don't you end us on this one, Phil?
[SPEAKER_01]: What does that mean?
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, this first...
[SPEAKER_05]: it always sounds a little strange to me the first part of it, but it's Jeremiah, you know, I just finished, I just finished Jeremiah, that guy.
[SPEAKER_05]: Good job.
[SPEAKER_05]: He's called the weak weeping profit.
[SPEAKER_05]: The stuff he had to do and the stuff he went through.
[SPEAKER_01]: Have you read that book by Eugene Peterson running with horses?
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so Jambis and he is shout out to Jan, love you, Jan, she, I saw her a couple weeks ago and she said, have you read this book?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's from the 80s.
[SPEAKER_01]: Eugene Peterson wrote this book called Running With Horses.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all basically on the life of Jeremiah and I had never had anyone explain to me from his vantage point.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like Eugene took this vantage point to explain Jeremiah in a way that was so compelling and he said,
[SPEAKER_01]: people often will talk about his writings, but the more powerful part is his life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so anyway, just to highlight for anyone listening, what's the thing you're so true?
[SPEAKER_05]: They are called to live out things that God as a as a sermon to Israel when they were
[SPEAKER_05]: And so all this happened through, but in Jeremiah 50, 60, he says, your words were found and I ate them.
[SPEAKER_05]: And that sounds kind of funny to me.
[SPEAKER_05]: But I ate them.
[SPEAKER_05]: He's talking about them.
[SPEAKER_05]: And your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart for I have been called by your name.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so I think he's just saying your words when they come inside of me, they delight my soul and bring joy because I'm yours.
[SPEAKER_05]: I think there is a joyful, and it does fill us with joy.
[SPEAKER_05]: Even when we're going through hard times, there's still a deep, abiding presence of God with us in that valley that we don't know what the outcomes going to be, but his word brings comfort, his word brings a quiet joy.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's not happy, happy, happy, but a quiet, settled joy, I think.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes, very much.
[SPEAKER_01]: So wherever anyone is at, these are one of our best habits that we can tell you is find a daily moment on burden your soul to Jesus through reading the Scriptures through prayer.
[SPEAKER_01]: And remember read, prayerfully, read carefully, read humbly, read expectantly, and lastly fill.
[SPEAKER_01]: And thank you for taking us there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Read joyfully.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we do promise, although there will be moments of up and down, man, we just know from personal experience, your life will be radically transformed, you will be filled with life.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this life on your way to heaven, you'll be experiencing heaven, which is a huge gift.
[SPEAKER_01]: And really there's no other way to bypass that.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't skip these things.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you want to spend, you want to know what Jesus is, you have to make time for who Jesus is in life.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so wherever you're at, thank you for listening, have a wonderful day.