Too Much Information

Do you ever get lost in the volume of information we take in daily? I think this information overload can even invade my Bible reading. I need to just slow down. Taking in the Bible isn’t a race. Reading through the bible in a year is a great accomplishment, but like Mark Batterson likes to say:

Reading is the way you get through the Bible;

prayer is the way you get the Bible through you.

I have been praying a specific verse every day in hopes that it’s getting through me. I already have it memorized from sheer repetition, and I’m meditating on it and applying it to daily things.

To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus will be glorified in you, and you in Him.

2 Thessalonians 1:11and 12a

It’s amazing to me how you can look at a verse over and over and not really digest one of the words. I didn’t even notice at first that this verse has the word faith in it. That’s my word for the year! How did that not just jump out at me?

I’ve prayed this verse over me and over literally dozens of other people. God knows I needed to sink into it. I’m thankful for His intentionality with me. He doesn’t tell me one time and expect me to get it…He knows me. My heart is slow sometimes because it’s distracted with all the things that don’t really matter. Meditating on one verse can slow your mind down. When you pray one verse over and over, it becomes part of the fabric of your heart and opens up so much meaning. The intentional focus opens my eyes to how the truth wants to impact my days, hours, and minutes. There are so many passages that I am super familiar with, but that doesn’t mean I have really steeped in them long enough that they have flavored my life and changed me.

Just like I didn’t immediately notice the word faith in this verse, what word do you think God wants to jump out at you?

It helps me to read with the emphasis on different words and really slow it down.

How do you need to read this verse today?

That God make you worthy of your calling

(because only He can convince you of your identity)

May fulfill every resolve for good

(every single one even if I don’t see the fruit)

Every work of faith

(every place that belief in God and not in me is the work)fulfill

By His power

(not my trying harder, but abiding better)

So that the name of our Lord Jesus will be glorified in you

( His name gets the glory in me, in my deepest places not just the words coming out of my mouth)

What is He telling you?

What is He quietly whispering on repeat?

How do you need to slow down to hear?

I need to hear that it’s okay to feel empty. I don’t have to fill me.

I need to hear that there are still things God wants to use me for.

I need to remember that I need to ask for God to fill me…every day.

He never intends for me to try and do anything in my own energy, but that is exactly what I do all the time. Just like the Israelites, I try to save the mana for tomorrow, when there isn’t a need to.

Sometimes reading a verse in a new translation prompts new application on insight. Check out this verse in the Message paraphrase:

“Because we know that this extraordinary day is just ahead, we pray for you all the time - pray that our God will make you fit for what he's called you to be, pray that he'll fill your good ideas and acts of faith with his own energy so that it all amounts to something.”

I want my acts of faith to amount to something, don’t you? They need to be filled with His energy for that. I need Him to fill me with the Holy Spirit so that He can spill out my ideas in the right direction and give me the power to see them through.

Steal this prayer today:

God, on my own all my best efforts will fall short and if we are honest, they’ll be misdirected and for my own glory. I need you to fill me, so that I can be who You have called me to be. Remind me of who I am today, who you want me to be: Your beloved child. Let my good ideas and acts of faith come from that direction and power them with Your energy. Thank you that you always give free refills as I go through the day.