Life in the Word Archives • Page 6 of 12 • The Littlest Way

November 20, 2014 by Jenny

I Want to Journal Bible Quotes

Hi, I’m Jenny and I’m addicted to pretty journals, pens, highlighters and Pins featuring colorful scripture journals. I want to journal Bible quotes…but I can’t. It’s not that I don’t try–believe me I do. It’s not that I don’t have the right tools–believe me I do. Ahem, I visit office supply stores and the school supply aisle like some women seek out good chocolate or great shoes. I think it’s my perfectionist tendencies. Yep, I think my inner perfect–who my husband wishes would show herself useful around the house–that keeps me from journaling inspiring Bible quotes.

Journal Bible Quotes

…and me…

Have you ever searched “Journal Bible Quotes” or “Scripture Journaling” on Pinterest? I love looking at scripture journals. The scriptures state “the Word of God is living and active” and seeing how people use a journal as a part of their devotional time inspires me. I want that intimate, artistic experience with the Word of God. I want that beautiful, physical expression from our devotional time together. Instead, I try…worry too much about what it looks like…end up frustrated…and don’t even know or remember the intimacies God and I shared. The practice of journaling Bible quotes becomes so much more about “me” than about “Him” or “us.”

Here’s how it usually goes…In my Bible reading, I will pause to reflect on a verse that has captured my attention. I’ll consider it, ponder it for a minute and then get out my highlighter to highlight the verse and that’s when it begins…

“But what color? Is it an obvious one I use, like pink for me as a woman, or green for my words or blue for my thoughts? Oh man, it’s one of those verses I already highlighted yellow when I first purchased my Bible because in an effort to calm my inner Bible-highlighting-perfectionist-nerd, I decided to highlight everything I liked in yellow. Now if I use a blue highlighter over it then that verse will turn green and it’s clearly not a verse about my words,” I argue with myself. “And what if the verse can actually be highlighted with more than one color? And symbols: boxes, circles, underlines…what if I mark a certain passage and then realize I should have marked it another way? What happens if the highlighter or pens leak through to the other side? I probably need a new Bible because I’ve already messed this year old one up trying out figure out my system.”

Moving on to my devotional journal…”Do I just start at page one and then page two and then…or do I number the pages and keep them in some type of order? Do I color code these pages as well? The verse is short, do I center it in the middle of the page so I can artistically ~~scribble~~ doodle around it? What about washi tape and stickers? What do I write, the verse and my impressions? Do I write a prayer using the verse? What if God didn’t speak to me about this verse…or I wasn’t listening? This verse says, “A voice from heaven…” how in the world do I draw God’s voice? Do I make lines in the upper corner of the page? Oh great, that looks like sunshine rays not God’s voice! Now I need to rip this page out!”

And then me at the store, “Oh look at the pretty journals. I bet this will be ‘The One.’ The journal that will make everything click. I will set down tomorrow and begin to journal Bible quotes with the best of them! This will be one of my spiritual legacies to my children. After my death they will fight over my collection of scripture journals. They will read them and then realize all those times the floor needed to be mopped, I was journaling inspiring Bible quotes and gaining great spiritual insights from the Lord–I have the artistic rendition to prove my intimate conversations with God.”

It’s a wonder–as my grandma would say–It’s a wonder based on all that inner dialogue above God doesn’t just open the Thunderheads and let it rain for 40 or so days huh? I mean really–Is any of that nonsense from God? Of course not! It’s all from me…and/or someone else who would love nothing better than to discourage me from reading my Bible or at least distract me enough while I’m reading it that I gain nothing–nada.

So the solution? Just sit down and read and keep the journaling to a simple formula. I do think journaling can be an effective means to understand the Word of God better or more deeply. But maybe for people like me, a simple, straight forward method is the best way. There is the S.O.A.P method that I have used, and it has worked really well; I actually had my children do it as part of their morning school–Hm, we may pick this practice back up…anyway.

Do you journal Bible quotes? What is your method?

Each day there is more encouragement and even some laughs over on my Facebook page. Head over and “Like” me there for more.

November 15, 2014 by Jenny

Book Club Time: Searching for and Maintaining Peace Part 3

Welcome to Part 3 of Book Club Time: Searching for and Maintaining Peace: A Small Treatise on Peace of Heart. Do not let the small size of this book fool you. Jacques Philippe packs so much instruction and wisdom into each word. Part one and two of my Book Club Time notes can be found here and here.

Book Club Time

*Direct quotes are bold and my notes and reflections follow.

Keep your heart open and always in the hands of Divine Providence, whether for great things or for small, and obtain for your heart more and more the spirit of gentleness and tranquility. We are all called to great things. It’s the interpretation of what makes a thing “great” that trips us up right? Praying outside the abortion mill or working the soup kitchen is a great good. But what if it comes at the expense of our family? (Who is My Neighbor?) Sometimes the greater good is calmly and sweetly putting the toddler back into bed for nap time after the fifth “I need a dwink.” Sometimes the greatest thing we can do is listen to our husband’s day intently without telling him all the things that went wrong in our day. One time a wise spiritual father told me, “Don’t go looking for extra sacrifices or crosses. Do what you are supposed to be doing instead and you will find them.”

If I am still not able to remain at peace when faced with difficult situations, then it is better that I should begin to strive to keep this peace in the easier situations of everyday life: to quietly and without irritability do my daily chores, to commit myself to doing each thing well in the present moment without preoccupying myself with what follows, to speak peacefully and with gentleness to those around me, to avoid excessive hurry in my gestures and in the way I climb the stairs. This goes along with the wise counsel I just shared. Jacques Philippe continues…Small things done with love and to please God are extremely beneficial in making us grow…

Must one run from evil? It must be done peacefully, without being troubled, otherwise, in fleeing, we could fall and give the enemy the leisure to do us in. This a quote from Francis de Sales the author shared. Years ago I suffered with anxiety attacks. I would feel one begin to come on and I would get scared because I knew what was coming–the physical pain and emotional distress. And the anxiety attack would be so.much.worse!! Eventually, there came a time when I began to feel the anxiety rising, I could stop and say–sometimes out loud even–“I know what this is. This is only anxiety. I am not going to die. I am not going to lose my mind. I’m going to think about (fill in the blank) instead…or I’m going to tackle the tile in the shower; it’s gross and needs my attention.” This took work, to be able to flee these anxious thoughts–calmly. But it made all.the.difference.

If you are struggling with fear and anxiety, I HIGHLY recommend you get Searching for and Maintaining Peace: A Small Treatise on Peace of Heart. This book along with my Bible and The 4:8 Principle: The Secret to a Joy-Filled Life were important tools in helping me to change my thinking habits.

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Each day there is more encouragement and even some laughs over on my Facebook page. Head over and “Like” me there for more.

November 14, 2014 by Jenny

Bedtime Bible Quotes

Chris–who never travels for work and is rarely away from home just returned from being gone for sixteen weeks for work. Sixteen weeks with a fly in late Friday night and fly out early Sunday afternoon every third week. Sixteen weeks of me not sleeping because I don’t sleep well, if at all when he’s out of town–which is rare, thanks be to God. During these sixteen weeks I have relied on a couple of inspiring Bible quotes each night as I have crawled into bed–way too late. I know I’m not the only one that needs some bedtime Bible quotes, so here are a couple I fell asleep or at least laid in bed repeating to myself.

First though let me say, I have a new appreciation for military families–Thank you! And single parents–God bless you. Remember when the kids and I were so very sick with what we now believe to have been that Enterovirus, Chris was gone for those nine weeks. He was also gone for the four foot long snake crawling up and around the door frame of the outside of the house. And the baby snake, possibly a copperhead, that was on the wood pile, and clogged toilets and broken shower heads and five children needing to be at five different soccer practices and…and… And I wear a bracelet that states, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” And I could. I made it–we made it all these weeks…BIG shout out to all my children but especially my three older girls. You girls are amazing and I am so proud to be your momma.

Bedtime Bible Quotes

So back to me and my fear and anxiety about being able to sleep or not being able to sleep when Chris is not here. First, I’ve mentioned how important it is to be careful about what we take into our minds (What Does the Bible Have to Say About Our Thoughts). Once it’s in there, it’s in there. And it will resurface at the most inopportune times–like late night. All those scary movies, crime shows and stories I read or watched, they pop into my head at night, trying to force themselves to be thought about. It takes concerted effort to think on the good, true and beautiful.

Once I begin the process of forcing these scary and negative thoughts out of my mind, I have to–have to–replace them with what I want to think about. One way to do this is to meditate on the Word of God. Hebrews 4:12 states “the Word of God is living and active”…those are the thoughts I want to and need to think of at night especially. I actually started sleeping with a small Bible under my pillow to remind me of the life giving power of the Word of God.

Before I went to bed though, I would try to fill my mind with inspiring bible quotes that would help me settle down and fall asleep in peace. I’ll be honest, sometimes they worked…sometimes they didn’t. But repeating and meditating on the Word of God is always worth it. Repeating and praying these verses at least, at the very least, kept me from allowing my mind to be cluttered with scary lies.

These verses would be great verses to teach our children, especially if we have some that have some extra trouble at night. I wish I had these verses to think on as a child. I remember struggling with fear and anxiety at night even as a child. Instead of being told to just go to bed and not think about scary things, these inspiring bible quotes would have helped fill that vacuum.

If you have a little one, big one or yourself that struggles at night, print this page of inspiring Bible quotes and prayer them over yourself or your children each night at bed time.

Now is the time to sign up to receive The Littlest Way by email.

Email subscribers will receive my Advent Devotional, FREE in their inbox. Hurry Advent begins November 30th.

So sign up (CLICK HERE) and enjoy!

Each day there is more encouragement and even some laughs over on my Facebook page. Head over and “Like” me there for more.

October 31, 2014 by Jenny

Daily Affirmations for Wives

I did it, I wrote consistently 30 of 31 Days. I enjoyed reading and reflecting on the book of Sirach this month, but I think some of my favorite posts from the month have been the last couple where I considered a good wife. One of my purposes in writing is to encourage women to take every thought captive to Christ and stop being a slave to negative thoughts. Daily affirmations can play a huge part in overcoming negative thinking. So let’s pull together some daily affirmations for wives.

It’s amazing how much we can learn about being a good wife from a few simple lines of scripture found in our Bible. But reading about a good wife is not enough. We have to desire to become one and then take steps to make it happen.

One of the easiest and most fruitful steps to becoming a good wife, is to start speaking of ourselves as a good wife–daily affirmations for wives. These affirmations need to be said repeatedly. Remember the whole “making new pathways in our brains” discussion we considered in “What Does the Bible Say About Our Thoughts.” Well, it applies here.

Just as an experiment, for the next week, let’s repeat these daily affirmations for wives at least twice a day, morning and night. Repeat them with an open mind and tender heart, asking God to make us the wife He created us to be. Also, anytime during the day we start to feel frustrated, angry or resentful with or toward our husband, let’s start saying these affirmations, preferably out loud. Also, where it says “husband” say your husband’s name.

Remember, these affirmations are not to change our husband. He will most likely be the same guy in one week as today. These daily affirmations are to change us. They are to change our heart, our thoughts and our words about our husband. We are fighting fire with fire here. If we have been negative or sloppy in our thoughts and words about our husband, the purpose of saying these affirmations are to make us positive and intentional in our thoughts and words.

If you are joining me for the next week in my daily affirmations for wives challenge, let me know in the comments. I would love to know I’m not alone in desiring to become a good wife.

Click here to read more posts about a good wife.

Each day there is more encouragement and even some laughs over on my Facebook page. Head over and “Like” me there for more.

October 21, 2014 by Jenny

Daily Affirmations for Women

I’m slipping this 31 Days post just in under the wire. I know it’s late Tuesday or early Wednesday for most of you, but let’s consider daily affirmations for women tonight. More importantly, let’s talk about one we need to start saying first thing every morning, starting this morning

I am wholehearted in my understanding and my speech is consistent.

Daily Affirmations for Women

There’s this verse in Sirach that says “Be steadfast in your understanding…” Lovely verse, but I don’t walk around using the word “steadfast” so I was a little confused how to apply this word into a daily affirmation. I looked up “steadfast” in the Thesaurus and I liked the last synonym listed…wholehearted.

Why “wholehearted” over “steadfast” in my daily affirmations? Because to me, being wholehearted means uniting my mind and heart. The Bible frequently uses the mind and heart interchangeably. Think of Psalm 19:14–“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.”

So for my daily affirmation, I want to unite my heart and mind. I want my understanding to be so multifaceted that I use every available means from God to understand His ways first. Then I want my understanding to extend to the grumpy toddler (or teen), the stressed husband, or the frustrated fifth grader. I need my mind and heart to truly understand these beautiful souls because they are uniquely multifaceted individuals. Seeing them at face value will lead to poor communication, misunderstanding and more frustration. Remember when we considered A Man of Understanding?

When I try to understand from my heart and my mind, hopefully, I can see past the tough exterior or the grumpy exterior. I will be able to recognize the fear, discomfort or sadness that may be not so obvious. I remember a long time ago hearing, “When a man is angry, there is always a fear behind that anger.” Being able to understand my husband’s anger in a different way, not just what I saw on the surface, helped me to respond instead of react to him. I could feel sympathy for a fear that was behind the anger instead of bristling in my own anger. This understanding completely diffused what could have been a tense situation.

Consistent speech…Oh where do we even begin? One of the reasons I write and blog is to encourage women to break free from negative thoughts and words. So let’s not go too in depth here because this is a topic we will cover frequently. Let’s just say, especially if you are a parent, we know the value of consistency. “Value” is not the best word…the necessity, of being consistent. One time is all it takes for a bad habit to try and take over any good already accomplished. This absolutely holds true in our daily affirmations. We must be consistent in our speech to ourselves or we won’t believe ourselves. If I tell my toddler, “Do not throw that toy or I will take it away from you,” and he throws it and I don’t take it…I’m not consistent; I become unbelievable.

In order for our daily affirmations to be effective, to be life changing and joy producing, we must be consistent in proclaiming them over ourselves. Our heart and mind must be steadfast–wholehearted–and in agreement consistently to break the bad habits we have learned and spoken to ourselves for who knows how long.