When You’re Too Broken to Find a Bible Promise
It’s a grey March afternoon, and the white lines of the Interstate feel like a pathway to some destiny that has me downright paralyzed. The events of the next two hours hold the power to radically shape the upcoming years of my life, and I’d give just about anything to find a Bible promise for this moment.
A Psalm comes to mind, and I whisper the words, but they get stuck somewhere between my head and my heart, and all I really want is to feel this truth like it’s real, like it’s for me.
Instead, nothing.
Just the drone of the engine over open highway and the sound of semi-trucks swooshing past in the mist.
What do you do when you’re too sad to find the words to pray? When you’d give anything for a worship song to lead you to the throne, but the signal is down, and all you find to tune through the speakers are old country songs about bars and breakups?
I turn the volume down on the country station as I keep my eyes on the wet pavement, and I simply decide to sit with Jesus in the uncertainty. I sit with him in the disappointment.
How to Lean Into Jesus in Your Brokenness
Sometimes this is enough: to simply sit with Jesus in all your emptiness and sadness.
To let him be like the friend who shows up after the funeral and doesn’t offer a single cliché statement to make herself feel less uncomfortable with your pain. To let togetherness be enough for the moment.
I sit for a while in the silence, and then it comes to me like a cloud floating across cerulean skies:
“This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast . . .” Hebrews 6:19
It is a verse I dissected three months ago, three months before I knew just how much I’d need it soon. I read commentaries, listened to sermons, wrote it on note cards, and meditated on it.
Not knowing just how much I’d need it, I did more than read it. I chewed on it until it was a part of me. And this is how we carry the Truth from our heads to our hearts:
We delve deeply into the Truth so that when times get tough, it is already a part of us. In these moments, we don’t need to work to conjure it into our conscious minds because it’s already imprinted on our hearts.
How to Make a Bible Promise a Part of You
This is why we need more than a simple skimming of the text when we open our Bibles: Light reading won’t carry these words from our heads to our hearts. Skimming won’t carry these Bible promises to the place where they become a part of us.
I spend the rest of the south-bound drive reminding myself of truths that were imbibed on my heart months ago: truths about anchors, storms, fear, and what it means to have a personal hope. And when I walk into that office where the life-changing results will shape my future, I walk in peace.
I walk in the most astounding kind of praise because I know my future is in a Person and not merely a circumstance.
Whether you’re desperate for a Bible promise from Gog right now, or whether life is full of blessing, abundance and ease, here are a few practical ways to go deeper when you open God’s Word:
1. Study every Bible promise as if you’re going to teach it.
Somewhere that feels like a lifetime ago, a college education professor reminded a class of rising teachers that we remember only ten percent of what we read, but we remember 95 percent of what we teach to others. This research by William Glasser has been tested and tried and proven.
If I want some part of God’s Word to reach my heart, I study it long enough and deep enough that I could teach it to a group of women. This includes studying the original language and cross-referencing with other Bible text, reading commentaries, watching sermons, and more.
That college professor from decades past challenged us with these words: “If you can’t teach it to someone else, do you really know it?”
2. Memorize and meditate on every Bible promise from God.
Psalm 119:11 reminds us to “hide God’s Word in our hearts so that we might not sin against him.”
When I’m tempted to give into fear, anxiety, worry, resentment, gossip, or some other sin, it is the memorized Word of God in my heart that often keeps my feet on the narrow path. I am reminded that his instructions are for my protection and not merely boundaries to stop my fun.
Commit to memorizing a verse every week. Write it down and post it on the fridge, by the mirror, in the car, across your desktop, or on your phone screen. Keep it in front of you. This is how it soaks into your heart.
3. Enter into the Bible.
I am a visual learner. This means I remember a Bible story more acutely if I allow myself to enter into the scene. I read the details of the text as if I’m going to use figurative language to rewrite it.
I search for clues to the sights, sounds, and smells I might have experienced if I were walking with Jesus on the road to Emmaus, sitting with him at the well, or eating a meal with him. Stepping into the story activates a different part of the brain than merely reading as an outsider.
~~~
Two hours after my quiet drive down the highway, I make the long trip home. Instead of clear answers, it seems our lot for this season of life is to simply keep waiting and watching.
To my surprise, this waiting doesn’t feel like a heavy burden. It feels more like waiting to see how the goodness of the Lord shows up in our situation. I’m lifted away from the worries and the fears, and from the quiet place, I hear this broken heart singing soft words of praise.
A Free Online Devotional Book Filled With Bible Promises:
I have a gift for you. God wants to continue to speak into your heart as you navigate this valley. He is waiting to heal your heart, lift your head, and pull you from your lowest moment. Rays of Light for the Dark Days is your daily guide. This free online devotional will inspire, comfort, and uplift you. Click here and I’ll send it to your email inbox—no strings attached.
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Calling All Moms and Daughters!
Additionally, my 12-year-old daughter, Bekah, and I wrote a mother-daughter devotional book to help mothers and daughters grow closer together while connecting with God. Girl to Girl: 60 Mother-Daughter Devotions for a Closer Relationship and Deeper Faith includes 60 devotions with Scripture, commentaries from both of us, conversation starters, and even a shared journaling section. Multitudes of mothers, daughters, mentors, and younger women are being transformed by this book! You can find this book in eBook form for free on the Kindle Unlimited Plan or buy a print copy for 11.99 right here.
