The Divine Mentor

I belong to “small group” at church of wonderful, funny, broken people who are all in different places on our Journey of faith.

At our 2015 Christmas party we busy playing games, eating cookies and exchanging white elephant guests when it was announced that everyone needed to vote on the next Bible study we’d be doing as a group.

With my white elephant gift in tow – a bag of quinoa and a can of mandarin oranges – I checked out the options:

1. “Effective Parenting in a Defective World” by Chip Ingram
2. “Renovation of the Heart” by Dallas Willard
3. To read through the Bible in 2016

I voted for the study on parenting. I struggle as a parent.  And my husband and I have very different parenting styles.

Also, I’ve already read Renovation of the Heart previously and reading through the Bible seemed like a very daunting task.  Finding even 10 minutes a day to read the Bible has often been a losing battle for me.

The group voted and we tallied up the ballots – Reading through the Bible in a year won.

Pinterest to the Rescue

I love Pinterest.  I have a huge collection of Pins – recipes to make, places to travel, great cleaning tips, DIY projects and gardening hacks.  98% are pages I like and pin, but never attempt.  I’d much rather read about  “green” cleaning techniques and how to make mason jar crafts than actually attempt any of them.

January was quickly approaching and my group had yet to come up with a reading plan.  I decided to see if Pinterest had any ideas.

Who knew how many great Bible study ideas are on Pinterest?  From color-coding your Bible to creating a war room out of a closet, Pinterest had everything!  Before getting too distracted by the ideas on creating Bible Study baskets out of shower caddies, I discovered a Pin recommending “The Divine Mentor” by Wayne Cordeiro.

Game changer.

The basic premise of the book is that nothing has the power to transform your life like sitting at the feet of the Savior.

The book includes a reading program – I have the app – and use the Life Journal Reading Plan.  I also use the SOAP method outlined by Cordeiro:

• Scripture
• Observation
• Application
• Prayer

Every morning I meet with Jesus.  I bring my coffee, Bible, journal, pen and “The Power of a Praying Wife” by Stormie Omartian.  My phone buzzes and my You Version app tells me what I need for the day.

Every day has been a blessing. What a privilege that I have the opportunity to spend time with a Moses, David, Paul and Peter.  I have gotten to know women who have experienced so many of the same highs and lows that I experience thousands of years later.  But mostly, I have been able to read a love letter from a man who died for me.

1 Corinthians 2:13 New International Version (NIV):  This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.

If you are wanted to grow in your spiritual life or are struggling to find a reading plan or Bible study, I highly recommend this plan.

Will you join me in sitting with Jesus and seeing where he leads us?

2 Timothy 3:16-17 New International Version (NIV):  All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Reading Plan – App or Written Plan (there is a plan in the book as well)

Tools

• Bible
• Journal
• Pen

Deuteronomy 8:1-3 New International Version (NIV):  Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors. Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.