The other day, my sister and I had a conversation and in it we were discussing bible reading.  We were talking about how it is that sometimes, even though we are reading the bible daily, our attitude doesn’t reflect that.  It is more that we are just reading to read and not allowing God to speak.  We also talked about how other times when we are reading we come across something and we immediately think about someone who needs to hear that! Why is it that we don’t think about ourselves needing to hear it first?

As we were talking about this, Psalm 139:23-24 came into my head.  I said, I guess that is why we need to frequently pray these verses.

“Search me, God, and know my heart, test me and know my anxious thoughts.
 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
Psalm 139:23-24

I know that many times, even with writing my blog, I may write something with a particular purpose to reach someone who is on my mind or just to encourage others, but numerous times, I have gone back and re-read them and started to cry realizing that the person I needed to be talking to was myself!

The next morning as I was doing my devotions, the first devotion I did, these verse were one of the verses to read.  As I went on to another reading that I am doing, one of the passages for the day came from Psalm 139 as well.  The verse popped up in a few other places that morning as well.  I was like OK God I guess you are trying to tell me something here!

What I felt like God was telling me was as much for me as it is for everyone….we need to self-examine our selves, we need to ask the Holy Spirit to show us what we need to address with His help.  Just reading our bible isn’t enough.  I read a great quote in my devotional from Nicky Gumbel.  He wrote “Knowledge about God will not satisfy you inner thirst, you need to cry out as the psalmist did for God’s presence.  Meet with God and pour out your soul, Worship is key!”  From Bible in One Year on YouVersion.

You see we can know whole books of the bible by heart, we can know all the stories and know all about Jesus, but unless that knowledge leads us to cry to God pouring our soul out to him, unless that leads us to worship, it is just head knowledge and nothing else. God speaks through his word and while we need to be reading his word, to hear it we also have to ask him to show us what he wants us to know.  We need the power of the Holy Spirit to open our ears to hear and our eyes to see.  We need to stop thinking everything we read is for someone else and start realizing that God is speaking to us and we need his help to become who he wants us to be.

Yesterday I challenged myself, to spend more time crying out to God with my whole soul, to ask him daily or even more frequently if need be to search me,to know my heart, to show me where I need to change and to lead me.  I want my life and my attitude to reflect my relationship with Jesus.  I don’t want to read a verse and automatically thing..oh this is for my “ex-husband” he needs to read this!  I want to approach everything I read in the bible and ask God to show me what he wants me to learn from it. Then I will more clearly be able to help point others to Christ.