When God Writes His Truth on Your Heart

Posted on Feb 23, 2017 Topic : Inspirational/Devotional, Women's Christian Living
Posted by : Denise J. Hughes

Go now, write it on a tablet for them, inscribe it on a scroll, that for the days to come it may be an everlasting witness.
Isaiah 30:8 (ɴɪᴠ)

On Thursday mornings the women at my church would gather around tables—with their Bibles, colored pens, and notebooks. A few even brought a Greek lexicon and a Bible dictionary with them. We loved our Thursday mornings together, diving into the Word. We’d read, share, laugh, pray, and sometimes cry.

One morning a visitor named Kathryn joined us. She was new to church and new to Bible study. But she shared a powerful story of how she had recently met the living God. For the first time in her life, she believed He’s real. So she thought she should go to church. But she was a little nervous.

Kathryn surveyed our colored pens and notebooks—her eyes wide with apprehension. Then we opened our Bibles and began to read, but our study had us looking up several cross-references. Kathryn fumbled through the crisp pages of her new Bible, struggling to find every passage, so we gladly helped her navigate the labyrinth of 66 foreign books.

When one friend shared a few synonyms from her Greek lexicon, Kathryn tossed her head back and laughed out loud, saying, “Well, it’s all Greek to me!”

As the weeks passed, Kathryn and I shared our stories and got to know each other. I watched her faith deepen as her familiarity with the Bible grew. But she confessed to me privately that the colored pens still intimidated her.

Meeting Kathryn reminded me of the first time I read God’s Word. Certain passages seemed to come alive, while other passages confused me. I didn’t have colored pens back then. Or a Greek lexicon. But I always enjoyed scribbling words on paper, so when I began studying the Bible as a young adult, I wrote down verses to help commit them to memory. I wrote out whole psalms to meditate on them. I even wrote out the passages I struggled to understand.

Writing the Word became a regular part of my daily quiet time.

Over time God’s Word transformed me from the inside out. Today my heart’s desire is to invite women into the Word. So when I sat down to write a Bible study for women, I imagined Kathryn sitting across from me. I also pictured next to me my friend Liz, who spends her days as a theological librarian at a Christian university. Because God’s Word is for everyone—the brand-new believer as well as the seasoned veteran of the faith.

I’m convinced a Bible study doesn’t have to be complicated to be deep. I do love the wonderful tools we have available to us through commentaries and lexicons and the sort, but my favorite time in the Word is when it’s just Jesus and me—with a Bible, a journal, and a single pen.

As I write God’s truth on paper, He writes His truth on my heart.