Ears to Hear

 

Shari, thank you so much for the sweet words on yesterday’s really random post! I made an unofficial blog goal this year to be more thoughtful in my writing, and when I wrote yesterday’s post, I couldn’t quite find my thoughts, so it felt like a fail. (Granting myself grace is still a skill I’m honing…) I am feeling a bit less scattered in thought today, so I have something more specific to share.

                It’s been a couple of months since a friend reached out to me for help in learning how to study the Bible. She found it overwhelming and confusing and didn’t know what to do. I asked if she would be willing to do a Bible reading plan with me, and she said yes. I’d heard good things about Tara-Leigh Cobble’s book The Bible Recap, but I hadn’t personally read it. I decided to give it a try, so we each got a copy of that book and then each day, we individually read the assigned daily Bible passage, followed by Tara-Leigh’s recap, and then we message each other about it to share what we learned.

                We’re almost a full month into this adventure, and I’m enjoying it so much. I love watching her discover new things, and you know what? I’m discovering new things, too.

                If you’ve read here very long, you probably know that I’ve done year-long Bible reads before, multiple times. For this one, I decided to listen to the passages instead of reading them. I keep my physical Bible close at hand in case I want to note something, but for the reading, I listen.

                I have never listened to the Bible before.

                A couple of days ago, as I listened to the passage, I heard something I had never noticed before. I even backed up the audio to listen a second time to make sure I heard it right. And then about five minutes later, I heard something else that stuck out to me for the first time.

                When the passage ended, I headed straight to my Bible to dig in a little more.

                I will always, always love a physical Bible. I will always love highlighting, underlining, making notes, and learning visually. But there is something really beautiful about hearing the Word of God, sometimes quite literally in ways I haven’t heard it before!

                If you haven’t tried listening to the Bible, I recommend giving it a try! You just don’t know what your ears might hear…for the first time!