Proverbs 3:5-6

I guess I lied when I said we'd go through the whole book of Romans verse by verse... yet another example of our inescapable imperfection!

I just wanted to throw up a quick post tonight.  I've been going through a rough time lately (but really, who isn't?) and I wanted to share a passage that God has given to me.

"Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths."  (Proverbs 3:5-6, NKJV)

I guess that's two verses... but that's all right.

I won't go very in depth tonight (mostly because I have to get going on my homework), but I want to encourage you to go back and read that again.  Now do it again.  Now again, but make sure you go slowly.  I find that I read the Bible way too quickly... all the time.  As a result, I'm not getting anything out of it.  Sure, God's peace overwhelms me when I simply glance over the precious words on the pages, but I'm not retaining it.  Therefore, my life doesn't reflect it and God's peace is gone the instant my eyes are off that page.  I need God's Word in me - in my heart.  I'm working on memorizing these verses (I'm not very good at memorizing, but I'm trying.)

I like to take verses one clause at a time.  If you don't know what a clause is, ask your local English teacher.  (By the way, I'm a total grammar nerd - I love the logic behind it.)

Our first clause is this: "Trust in the LORD with all your heart..."  This may seem self-explanatory, but the keyword is trust.  I worry about so much!  Too much.  This causes stress, baggage, and weariness, among many other things, in my life.  Things I don't need and that God never wanted/intended for me to have.  If I would simply trust that my God has it all under control and let him take the wheel, all of that would be gone.  (Matthew 11:28-30 is a fitting passage for this as well.)

Second, we have: "...and lean not on your own understanding..."  Let's face it: I think I know it all.  I can get through life without help from anyone.  I am that rare exception of a teenager that does not, in fact, need my parents.  I understand everything, so I can deal with all situations in life.  Well, I am dead wrong.  I love how it is worded here.  Lean.  One leans on something for support, depending on that thing to hold him/her up.  Just think about what the word "lean" means to you for a bit.  I love that word.  Every time I lean on my own understanding or my own knowledge, my artificial support system falls to the ground in pieces.  And let me tell you, one thing that never fails is that my own support system always fails.  I always fail.  Lately, that has been my problem.  I am a failure.  But what am I not doing?  Reading the Word of God.  I need a support system that can actually hold my weight (and I am pretty heavy spiritually right now.)  God's Word never fails.  Jesus Christ never fails.  He and only He is more than strong enough to hold me up.  "Lean not on your own understanding, Kyara."

Next: "...in all your ways, acknowledge Him..." I looked up the definition for acknowledge and found this: "to accept (someone) to be what he/she claims."  Now, what did Jesus claim to be?  John 14:6 "I am The Way, The Truth, and The Life...."  So in whatever I'm doing or whatever I'm going through, I need to accept that Jesus is my Way, my Truth, and my Life.  That's a biggy.

Finally, the last clause is this: "...He shall direct your paths."  I'm using the New King James Version (which I adore) and by the word "direct" it has a footnote that says "or make straight."  God wants to, is able to, and will make my paths straight if I trust Him, lean on Him, and accept Him.  My path is all over the place, and it's dark.  It would be lovely to have that cleared up.

So maybe that was a bit in depth.  I can't help it, though - as I've stated before, there is so much you can get from God's word in just one (or two) verse(s)!  It's amazing (and not in a light sense.)  Thank you for reading.  Please feel free to contact me with questions, comments, or suggestions.

Trust Him...  Lean on Him...  Accept Him...

Romans 1:2

• NKJV - "...which He promised before through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures..."
• KJV - "...which he had promised afore by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures..."
• NIV - "...the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures..."

"He promised..." and whenever God promises, you'd better believe it's coming true!  That's probably my favorite part in the verse.  I love to hear that God promises things to us - and then follows through!  The NIV makes it more clear, but what this verse is describing the gospel we mentioned in Romans 1:1 ("...set apart for the gospel of God...").  The gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ, God's Son: His coming, dying, rising, and coming again!  Our Father God promised this good news through His prophets in the Old Testament: Isaiah, Micah, Jeremiah... etc.  Isaiah contains the most information about Jesus.

I encourage you, and myself, to read through the gospels - Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John - and find all of the references to the prophecies concerning the Messiah.  I started to mark all the prophecy references in Matthew, and I was amazed at how many there were just in the first few chapters!  Like seven or eight!  I can't wait to find more!  It may just be the way I think, but I absolutely love the references to the Old Testament (or the Holy Scriptures, as known back then) in the New Testament!  Jesus fulfilled so many prophecies... all of the ones about a Messiah, in fact, 100%!  It's really neat to think that Isaiah was written around 800 years before Jesus was even born!  God orchestrates things so beautifully!  Much lovelier than any symphony I've heard!

Please post any additions to my thoughts, any questions, any comments, any anything!  Thank you for reading!  Our God is truly an Awesome God!

Romans 1:1

I would love to start with the book of Romans!  The more I read out of this book, the more I fall in love with it!


Alright, let's dive right in... Romans 1:1 says,

• NKJV - "Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God..."
• KJV - "Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God..."
• NIV - "Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God..."

This verse is the introduction for the letter to the Romans.  I think it's both important and interesting to keep in mind throughout the book that this is a letter written by a man to a group of fellow believers in the city of Rome a little less than 2,000 years ago!  To me, it makes it seem much more personal and real.

Since this verse is an introduction, we are introduced to the author, who in this case is Paul.  I recommend, to myself as well as my readers, doing some research on Paul.  His story of how God called him is really awesome.  The more I hear about him, and the more I read from him, the more I admire him!  Here, he describes himself as a 'servant of Jesus Christ.'  Now, we all know what a servant is, but still, it's good to stop and slowly digest that phrase for a minute.  We are servants of King Jesus.  Sometimes we have to ask ourselves, "How well am I serving my King?"  We know we will receive rewards in Heaven for what we do down here, but sometimes it can be hard to remember when we don't see some instant results for our labor.  Especially as Americans, we like things to happen right now! Computers, text messages, fast food... we want instant results - we got stuff to do!  But it's good to remember that it's worth serving, even without results we can see - all for our King!


"...called to be an apostle..."  I love the idea that we are called by God to be certain things.  It is hard to hear his calling sometimes, especially if we aren't listening.  We are all called to be apostles in the ways that God has planned for us.  I've always wondered what the difference was between the disciples and the apostles.  Finally, I looked up the two words.  A disciple is a follower, while an apostle is one who is sent out with a message.  It makes sense, right?  So if we, as Christians, are sent out with the wonderful message of Jesus Christ (Matthew 28:19-20), then that makes us apostles, too!


Paul also calls himself "set apart for the gospel of God."  I like how the NIV puts it, although they all mean the same thing.  That's pretty cool to think about - that we were and are set apart for the sake of God's message.  God picked us out, personally, to share His gospel with the lost and hurting, just like Paul is doing through his letter.  Pretty neat!


It's amazing how much you can get out of one simple verse!  Hope you enjoyed reading my thoughts and a little bit of God's lovely Word.  Please post your additions to my thoughts, or comments, or questions, or anything!  Thank you for reading!

The Beginning

Hey everyone!

So I've always thought it would be neat to have a blog... just to write down ideas for the world to see, but I never knew what I would write about.  Recently, I was reading my Bible and realized that I was basically just skimming through It; I wasn't really getting anything out of His Word.  I started to read it much, much slower, and finally started to retain information!  Which is good, because the Bible contains the most important information ever, right?  Of course!

I've decided to go through the Bible 'verse by verse,' hence the name of this blog, and I invite you to come along.   Every verse has something to say to us, otherwise God wouldn't have written it.  So please, share your thoughts on what I have to say and on what Our God has to say!  I'm very excited to jump into God's Amazing Word... isn't it awesome that He didn't just leave us with nothing?  He gave us all we need, and it's all in one Book.  Thank you, God!