Fitness Friday: Prideful or Equipped?

I’ve been prideful.

I’ve fallen away from regularly reading my Bible, thinking I don’t need it.

I’ve made excuses…like, “well, I’m praying instead”; “I’m worshiping while I walk”; “it’s not in my heart to read the Bible regularly right now – I’m not in that season”. 

And here’s the big one:

“Besides,” I reasoned with myself, “I’ve read the Bible for years and years and I know a whole lot of it, and I have a strong relationship with the Lord. So I don’t need to read it right now.”

But the Lord used my own words to correct me. Don’t you just love it when He does that? From a chapter in my book (to be released this month), Intentional Fitness:

Reading the Bible isn’t just one of those “checklist things to do.” And the purpose of reading the Bible is not to just know about God and fill up with intellectual knowledge, or to be able to know the “rules” so we can live by following some type of formula. Rather it is a way of getting to know who God is, how He thinks, and what He has to say about us and our place in the world so that we can live as God created us to live every day, in the fullness of relationship with Him. Without reading the Bible with that intent, we cannot know God, period.

How arrogant I’ve been to think that I can ever know God well enough!

Lord, I am so sorry. Please forgive me.

This past weekend, I attended an awesome conference and met many Godly women who radiated God’s love and peace. At the conference, I bought a Bible study written by my friend Annie Pajcic titled “Planted” as a gift for a friend.

But after getting home, the Lord made it crystal clear that it was for me.

So the Lord and I started on Monday, and I’ve experienced more peace this week than I have in a long time. Before this week I would have said I was at peace and doing well. But looking back, I can see that I struggled to stay at rest in Him, and I struggled to keep calm in my circumstances – especially at work. I’d been missing that deep peace that comes from filling up with His truth – the abiding peace that equips us to handle whatever comes our way, and handle it well.

Plus, He speaks to us through the Bible and we need that guidance. You know, the way you can read a verse several times over the years, and each time it can mean something different to you depending on what is happening in your life?

What an amazing blessing, this book called The Bible!

So prideful or equipped? Thanks to the Lord’s awesome grace, mercy, and guidance, I choose to be equipped.

TODAY’S CHALLENGE:  What about you?