So how do you study?

This post is targeted to all my Christian friends. I need some advice from all of you and I am hoping to receive some good direction and recommendations. The question that I am posing to you is a simple one. How do you study the Bible? This question seems so simple to ask and yet so hard for some to grasp and acquire the necessary skill set. We all know we should be doing so and in some cases find guilt if one who professes to be a Christian fails to actively pursue this most basic of disciplines.

Yet, I find that this is one of the most difficult questions for me to answer. Sure I could give the typical answer and say that you should read a certain amount of chapters each day. Perhaps you could even find a reading plan that will guide you through the entire Bible over a specific period of time. These are basic answers that I am sure we have all given to this question. However, I find that these suggestions may indeed get me through the literature yet I am left feeling quite shallow in my understanding of His Word.

I do not want to read the Bible as though it were a mere chore that Christians are expected to perform. I want to read it from a seeker standpoint. I want to obtain a deep understanding of how the words apply to my life and what I am to glean from them. I listen to many gifted pastors and teachers and would love to have the ability to grasp the text and extract life application as they seemingly do with ease. No, I have not attended any seminary classes nor do I plan to. I appreciate the extent these people have gone to obtain a thorough education in the Scripture. However, I also believe that God wants all of us to find meaning in His Word and to be able to do so without a prerequisite being countless hours of sitting under a seminary professor.

So this brings me to the question that I have for all you who will read this post. How do you study the Bible? What are some tips that you have found work well for you in gaining understanding? What versions of the Bible have you found to aid your understanding? Do you use other resources to focus your study efforts and if so what are those? Do you find being in a small group/bible study group helps you focus more and obtain understanding?

So take a few minutes and comment on this post if you would please. I would love to get your feedback and hopefully take some of your suggestions and put them into practice in my own study time. Once again you can comment right here in this blog by clicking on the comment link below, respond to this post via Facebook, or tweet back to me from the link I provide on my Twitter feed.

Participation is the key...

Well, I don't have a new topic to post on my blog for tonight. However, I would like to talk a little bit about participation. I understand that this blog is new both to you the reader and for me the writer. It is my hope that it will bring about a community of friends that can weigh in and discuss various topics that either I write about or that you bring up as well.

When I look at the stats on my blog I can see that nearly 60 people have logged on and read the posts up to this point. I am very grateful for this and I am elated with that figure for the first two days. My next goal is to have people to comment on the posts and promote active conversations on the posted topics. I know a lot of you log on and read many things such as blogs, facebook, twitter etc. However, not many of you post or respond after you have read a post or blog.

I really want to encourage you to feel free to comment and respond to my blog posts. I post the blog here at www.ahumbleseeker.blogspot.com. I am also posting it on my facebook page and also on my twitter account which is under my video business name innerlightfilms. Thank you for taking the time to read this post and I really encourage you to take a couple of minutes to respond to these posts as I create them. I greatly value the opinions of my friends and this will only work to its fullest potential if we can create a community of open and honest sharing.

Thanks for listening.

How do you know when it's time?

This post is for all you parents out there. In specific, those of you who have teenage children embarking on their quest to find a new sense of freedom. In my case, I have a daughter who just turned 16 years old last week. I guess the first step is coming to grips with the fact that I have a sixteen year old child in my house. Do you ever feel like you blinked and your child grew up in a matter of a few short days? Or perhaps you are like me and think that if I knew then what I know now I would have done some things differently in raising my children. We can only hope that we have done the best job that we knew how to do and trust they will remember the good advice given to them and forget the memories of not so good parenting through the years.

So how do you know when your sixteen year old is ready for additional responsibilities? In our house we have been talking about our daughter getting a job. The problem is how do you effectively coach them through adding this responsibility to their already busy schedules? There are two areas of which I do not want her to compromise her schedule. The first is that I do not want a potential job to keep her from being able to attend church or church related activities. Her growing faith is of utmost importance and I do not want to take her away from opportunities to participate in worship times and continue nurturing friendship with other like minded teens.

The second scheduling issue is when it comes to her after school activities. Our daughter is a photographer on the high school newspaper. Her responsibilities in this position require her to be available to stay after school or even return to school later in the evening to take pictures of events. These can range from club activities, sporting events, musicals and many other events that require her attendance either at the school or to travel to where the event is taking place to capture it. Since this participation is so varied and broad it does require a lot of availability and requires her to be at the school outside of normal hours quite often.

I say this about her photography because she is passionate about pursuing a career in journalism. The participation that she has by being a part of the school newspaper is gaining her valuable journalism experience and is continuing to nurture that passion to make this a career. I really do not want to severely limit or stop her participation in this area. However, I also realize that she can't have her cake and eat it too. She does need to get out there and start getting some life experience and make money on her own.

This is why I am turning to others who will read this blog. I know many other parents are either experiencing this or have already been through this before. So, please feel free to post your comments and thoughts on this topic and provide suggestions. I look forward to reading all of them and including them in our decision making.

Humble Beginnings

Ok. We all start a new year with the hopes of either changing something about ourselves or beginning something anew. For me I have taken the approach of beginning something new. I have always wanted to get my thoughts out and into a format I can reflect upon. You may refer to this as a mind dump of sorts. It is my opinion that we all need to do this from time to time. This allows for opportunity to reflect upon your own thoughts as well as for others to comment or glean inspiration from your writings.

So having said that I begin this blog. My hope is to grow my writing skills and share thoughts and inspiration for others as I traverse through life. We will grow together in knowledge and share life experiences. I hope that as people read this blog they will share their thoughts and comments so that we all can learn from each other and gain new perspectives on life.

I welcome you to this blog and this atmosphere of friendship and learning. May you read, respond, comment and grow as I do through this wonderful process. In upcoming posts I will begin to share some of my passions and interests which hopefully will spawn conversation and posts from readers. I look forward to sharing in this experience together.