Don’t wait for a life-altering injury to drive you into the pages of God's Word. What God has to say to you is too important to put aside for later. Join a Bible study at your church today.
Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada with a word about Bible study.
It was 1969 and I was fresh out of the rehabilitation center following my diving accident – for nearly two full years, I had been sequestered from the mainstream of life. But now, faced with day-to-day in a wheelchair, I felt myself sinking into a deep depression. Managing life as a quadriplegic was not going to be easy. I was a Christian at the time I suffered my broken neck, but up until then, I had never taken God’s Word real seriously. True, I would turn to the Bible for comfort when I lacked a date for the weekend, or when I received a failing grade in school, but the Bible was well, more like a how-to manual – something I would reach for if a part of my life wasn’t working.
Ah, but now it was a different story. Paralysis was a game-changer, and I so wanted to rise up out of depression and begin living again. Now I knew that the pages of the Bible probably contained answers for my problems; I just didn’t know where to look. Holding a mouth stick between my teeth, I would flip through the Old and New Testaments, this way and that, looking here and there for hope and help. Once in a while I hit on an answer, but it was sporadic, at best. That’s when a friend offered to hold a Bible study in my home. he told me that we’d not only study the Bible, but we would learn how to study it. And within weeks, I was making word lists, I was researching themes, doing comparisons, cross referencing texts – finally, someone had shown me how to systematically dig deeper into God's Word.
The first topical study I completed was on the subject of suffering. And I was amazed at how much the Bible talked about it. I saw that God's Word does not tiptoe around the subject, you know, embarrassed that the Almighty allows so many pains and problems; rather, the Bible speaks forthrightly about suffering and makes no apologies for it. In a short time, I began to feel comfortable with the subject of suffering. I began to own my weakness. I was a great example of Psalm 119:71 where it says, “It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.” Yep, I could honestly see how my disability was good – it was forcing me to learn about God and his decrees.
And now? Believe me; the Bible is much, much more than my how-to manual. It is my meat and drink. Deuteronomy 8:3 best describes my relationship with the Word of God where it says, “[God] humbled you, causing you to hunger, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” That’s right, God humbled me through quadriplegia, but it caused me to hunger for the precepts of the Lord. And I couldn’t be more satisfied. Friend, don’t wait for a life-altering injury to drive you into the pages of God's Word. Learn how to dissect and meditate upon the words of the Lord now. What God has to say to you is too important to put aside for later – he has something to say now, so please, start attending a Bible study in your church. Learn how to do word lists and topical studies; learn how to identify themes. God's Word is that powerful. It is that good!
One more thing, and just know that I love sharing this sort of hope with you every single day, so please join me next time right here for more inspiration and even more hope. And by the way, if you’d like to share this program on your Facebook page, just click the share button at joniradio.org. Spread the word and the hope!
© Joni and Friends