"I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble." – Helen Keller
Whether you were inspired to begin Scripture writing by this recent post, or you’ve been doing it for a while and enjoyed seeing the many different reasons and methods for it, or if you’re still contemplating giving it a try, I have a gift for you.
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Why and How to Do It • Plain or Fancy Methods
Daily time in the Word is a struggle for many Christians, and for many years, I was no exception. Despite my good intentions, I couldn’t seem to find the time or motivation to read my Bible every day, even though I truly wanted to and knew that I should.
Since 2018, I’ve been reading the Bible daily without fail, and I can give credit to one simple thing that has made this change possible. Scripture writing has utterly transformed my spiritual life (no exaggeration), my mornings, and my Bible time.
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By the time I was ten, I had had three earthly fathers.
The first father was the absent one, my biological father. My parents divorced in a storm of anger and legal drama when I was just a few months old, and my mom and I lived with her parents for the next several years. Father Number One left the country he despised for a new life on a new continent, where he stayed.
The second father was the abusive one, my stepfather. My mother had impulsively married one of her more promising boyfriends, and while it seemed like a good idea at the time, his physical abuse started within weeks and escalated rapidly until one final beating which put her in the hospital just before Christmas. She and I fled in secret to another state a thousand miles away and Father Number Two never found us.
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Some time ago, a young friend mentioned that she heard something in a sermon—a spiritual truth of some kind—that she had always known, yet had forgotten up until that point of hearing it again. She was disappointed in herself for forgetting, knowing that Satan delights in our tendency to forget God’s promises, his faithfulness, and his Word.
She might have thought she was alone in her difficulty, or maybe she thought that she was just too young to have overcome it yet, but the truth is, we’re all victims of spiritual amnesia. How many times have you heard a sermon, read a devotional, sat in on Bible study, or received counsel from a friend in Christ, and thought to yourself, “I already knew this, but I had to be reminded of it yet again!” You might have felt discouraged, surprised, or frustrated that you had forgotten. You might have thought, “Why am I always forgetting this about God?”
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Whose voice do you hear when a much older Christian woman speaks into your life?
When I was eight years old, I became a grown-up. Changing life circumstances and a mom who needed my help in many areas of her life caused me to say good-bye to most of the rest of my childhood and learn how to be an adult quickly.
One recent Sunday, almost 50 years later, I sat in church and listened to a prayer written and spoken by a woman a little older than my mother would have been if she were still alive. Her prayer was just a minute or two long, and by the end of it I was in tears. Now, I cry easily for many reasons, so the tears themselves didn’t surprise me. The surprise was that I was crying for something I longed for without knowing, like a memory that had never happened or a desire just out of reach.
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In the 25 years that I’ve been a Christian, I’ve participated in a lot of Bible studies.
There was the Bible study that encouraged me to be more like David, someone after God’s own heart. The Bible study that took me from Genesis to Revelation in ten weeks. Homespun Bible studies written by gifted women in my church and shiny new Bible studies from major publishers. Bible studies that provided free childcare (thank you, Lord) and Bible studies that had me in tears of conviction on the drive home. Big Bible studies in a room full of women and small Bible studies in a church member’s living room.
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If you’re new to the faith, if you’ve forgotten or were never taught some of these concepts, or if you’re just curious as to how your own story fits in with God’s story, this article is for you.
Human beings crave stories. From very young childhood, we’re entertained by them, cautioned by them, learn from them, and willingly pay good money to be mesmerized by them (i.e., taken out of our own story and immersed in someone else’s) for a few hours—whether in a book, a movie, a play, even a video game or a painting.
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Many years ago when I was a young mom with an intense and challenging preschooler, I was getting coffee at Bible study next to an older, well-respected woman in the church. She had heard through the church grapevine that I was having trouble with my son, and she casually said to me, out of nowhere, “Isn’t it great, Rebekah, that we can get all the parenting help we need right there in the Bible?”
That out-of-the-blue comment really threw me. Even though I was a fairly new Christian, I was pretty sure there was not a lot of direct parenting advice in the Bible that dealt with my specific issues with my young son. I honestly didn’t have a clue what she was even talking about. Feeling awkward, I smiled and nodded, and she went on her way, never mentioning it again.
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“We all desire to know and be known.”
“I just want to be heard.”
“I feel seen.”
The desire to be seen, heard, and known is universal. We all want to feel significant, worthy of attention, and validated by others. It’s painful to feel ignored, anonymous, or irrelevant.
Yet we often find ourselves in situations where we feel exactly that:
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My first grandchild was born last year. What a wonderful day it was when she finally arrived! She is delightful in the way that only babies can be. But even though she’s already here and I love her sweet baby self, I have great anticipation for the future, because truly knowing her, seeing her grow into all she is meant to be, is still yet to come.
She’s already here, and is so precious … but she is not yet who she will become.
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Great and Noble Tasks 