Creating Bible Studies For Our Intentions

We are now six weeks into 2021. Can you believe it?! Hopefully by now, you have set intentions for your word of the year. If you need to read more about setting intentions visit this post. Setting intentions gives us a framework or guideline for how we want to live out our word of the year. Another thing setting intentions provides us with is an opportunity to create numerous Bible studies to dig into throughout the year. Studying God's Word in relationship to our intentions will help ground our intentions biblically and move us deeper on the path of living out God's will and His ways.

Let me give you a few examples:

• Let's say that one of your intentions this year is to be more grateful. An idea for a Bible study might be to start with a word study of the word thankful and get a sense of what the Bible says about having a grateful heart. You might narrow your study down to simply the Psalms and look at the ways the various Psalmists contrasted their laments with choosing to trust, praise and worship God (Read Psalm 13 for an example). Or maybe you trace being thankful simply in the New Testament letters, looking at how as God's people we are called to live as grateful people ( see 1 Thessalonians 5:18 for example). 
• Maybe your intentions includes relating better with others or living more in community. You might study all of the "one another's" and "each other's" through the New Testament to gain an understanding of what living in community looks like biblically. 
• Or maybe health is one of your intentions. You could do a study of the body and how God views "your body is a temple of God" (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). Studying what God says about how we live in our physical body may help gain a deeper understanding of stewarding the resources God has provided for us.

These are just some examples using common intentions. Make sure when you study Bible verses that you use the cross references in the margins. Following cross references will often lead me on rabbit trails that have led to some of my most enlightening Bible studies.

Examples From My Intentions

Here again are my intentions for my word Rhythm.

I actually have included some of the Bible studies I will do for some of my intentions this year, mainly around my intention to focus on the rhythms of Christ's life. Those studies will include studying the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7, studying Jesus' prayer in John 17, doing a word study on 'christlike' and 'imitate' in the New Testament, reading the Gospels to look at Jesus' life and words. All of these studies will give me a picture of how Jesus lived - the rhythm of His life.

Another area that is important to me are healthy rhythms. I especially want to focus on the balance of work and rest. My Sabbath practices got a bit off-kilter this past year during the pandemic. Yet at the same time the slower pace of life has opened my eyes to a healthier pace. How will I maintain that when we return to 'normal'? What rhythms need to be in place for me to have a healthy balance of energy? In part, this will mean I re-examine past studies I have done on looking at what a Sabbath practice means in the Bible.

Under the category "Rhythms of Grace" there are things like studying my theme passage, Matthew 11:28-30. We will dig into studying our theme verse or passage next week. But also under that category you'll note there is a reference to "rule of life". This is a topic I have looked at in the past, although not too deeply. I want to dig into it more this year because when I think of rhythms I think of a "rule of life". So that is where I will start today with my Bible study.

Rule of Life

A Rule of life is traditionally thought of as the monastic order of set times for prayer and other activities designed to help monks keep their focus on God throughout the day. In modern times, a rule of life is simply creating a plan for time with God and for growing in Christlikeness.

Author, Ruth Haley Barton calls it "a way of ordering our life around the values, practices and relationships that keep us open and available for the work of spiritual transformation that only God can bring about." Another way she states it, in her book Sacred Rhythms, is that a rule of life is "cultivating rhythms for spiritual transformation". She says that developing a rule of life seeks to answer the question, "How do I want to live so I can be who I want to be?".

I find word origins and their original uses quite interesting. The word "Rule" comes from an ancient Greek word, kanon, which meant, properly, a rod (cane or reed) used as a measuring standard - what we would call a ruler. Figuratively the word was used for a rule - a standard or norm. In the early church it was used as a summary of orthodox Christian doctrine called "the rule of truth" or "rule of faith". From this we get "the canon of Scripture" which are the authorized 66 books of the Bible. This Greek word, kanon, was then translated into Latin, "regula", from which our English word "rule" comes from.

So, what I find interesting is that this Greek word, kanon, was also used to refer to a trellis, the wooden structure used to tie grapevines to in order to keep them off the ground and growing upright, so that they will be more fruitful and productive. A rule of life has often been referred to as a trellis that helps us abide in Christ and grow in Him. Like a trellis, a rule of life helps spur growth by providing structure and support to every part of our life. 

Jesus used the example of grapevines when speaking of our spiritual life in John 15:1-17. So this is where I will start, looking at how being connected to Jesus helps us grow and produce fruit. Studying and practicing spiritual disciplines (practices) will fit into this as well, which I will write about in two weeks.

I hope that my list of Bible studies that will support my intentions helps you see how to come up with your own. The word study steps and tutorial that I shared last week are a great way to start Bible studies. If you are struggling with how to create Bible studies for your intentions for your word of the year, please feel free to email your intentions to me and I will give some suggestions (marybrack@gmail.com). Or you can post a comment in the Words Art & Faith Facebook group and we can all help each other, supporting, encouraging and building each other up are, after all, the intent of this group.

It seems strange doing posts without art this month, but the focus this month is on exploring God's Word in order to live out our word of the year. The art will come about after the studying!

Exploring Your Word in God's Word

 

Exploring Your Word in God's Word

For me, having a word of the year and living out intentions must be grounded in God's Word. That requires exploring my word and intentions in the Word of God. I do that in a number of ways:

• Doing a word study of my selected word. If my chosen word is one that is repeated throughout the Bible, such as peace or love, then doing a word study will produce a lot of verses to select from and my task is to narrow it down to those that support my reason for selecting that word. However, if my word is more of a concept then it will require more digging. This is the case for my word this year, RHYTHM.
• Another way to explore my word in God's Word is to study areas that support the intentions I have set for living out my word.
• I also will select a theme verse or passage to serve as a guide through the year with my word. So an in-depth study of that verse or passage will be an on-going practice through the year.
• Then there are spiritual practices that I can use to me grow spiritually through the year. The word I choose for a particular year can help determine which practices (also know as spiritual disciplines or sacred rhythms) to engage in and explore that year. For example if I've chosen a word, such as love, which by its nature biblically calls for action to others, I may want to engage in serving practices through the year and focus on active ways  of loving others. But I will also want to engage in practices that connect me with the love of God, like Bible study, prayer and meditation.

So this will serve as our guide this month:

• Today we will look at word studies in the Bible.
• 2/12 Creating Bible studies for our intentions.
• 2/19 Our theme verse or passage Bible study.
• 2/26 Determining spiritual practices to accompany our word.

Doing A Word Study With Your Word

I am a huge fan of word studies. In fact, the Words Challenges I do are basically devotions that come out of word studies. Every year I will do a number of word studies with my word of the year. This past summer when we did the Thessalonians Words Challenge I created a document to walk people through the steps of a word study. You can click on the picture of the document below to open the full three page document as a PDF. Feel free to print it out. Also visit the Bible Study Tips & Techniques page here on my blog for other study tutorials. You can also find it in the menu at the top of my site.

Having said all that I have about my enjoyment of word studies and doing them with my word of the year, I find it is not as easy for me this year. My word, rhythm, is not actually found in the Bible, rather it is a concept. It's not as easy to do a word study with a concept. But there are ways to accomplish the same thing.

1.  A search of modern translations and paraphrases may reveal your word. For example, my word is used in The Message Bible, which is a modern paraphrase, rather than a translation. In fact, my word is found in my theme verse in The Message. 

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30 NIV

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” Matthew 11:28-30 MSG

2.  You can use the synonyms of your word to see if any of those words  reveal verses that will help you live out your word. Some of the synonyms for my word are flow, movement, pulse, pace, routine, balance. They didn't really produce much either. Although when I did a search on 'movement' the following verse came up for the word 'move' and I feel it fits my word well.

"For in him we live and move and have our being." Acts 17:28. This verse has a sense of our life flowing with the rhythms of Christ. I may do more with that as the year progresses.

3. If searching for words does not result in much then it's time to search for concepts. We will get into this deeper next week when we explore creating Bible studies for our intentions, but let me give you a quick example of how I have started doing this. One of the ways I keep spiritually, emotionally and physically healthy is by maintaining a healthy rhythm of work and rest. Rest, for me, includes treating my body well, being creative, making space for downtime, and practicing Sabbath rest - dedicated time spent with the Lord. All of this is an on-going process that requires being intentional. The word 'rest' is also in my theme verse. While looking up the synonym words for my word I came upon the Greek word 'sunanapauomai'. It includes part of the word for rest used in Matthew 11:28 (anapauo). Sunanapauomai is a word made from the words 'sun' which means together and 'anapauo' which means to refresh or to rest. So, it is to refresh or take rest with someone. I ran across the following verses where Paul speaks of being refreshed by being with other people:

"[Pray]so that by God's will I may come to you with joy and be refreshed in your company." Romans 15:32

"...for they refreshed my spirit as well as yours." 1 Corinthians 16:18

"And besides our own comfort, we rejoiced still more at the joy of Titus, because his spirit has been refreshed by you all." 2 Corinthians 7:13

"Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the Lord’s people." Philemon verse 7

It would appear that Paul is telling us that part of the Lord's refreshing for us comes about through other Christ-followers. I was not looking for this. In fact, if I'm really honest, I usually am refreshed the most by solitude. But I sense in this that God may be calling me to embrace something different this year - to include others in some way in my time of rest. I did something this past summer that turned out to be quite fruitful. As I began preparing for the Thessalonians Words Challenge I also began a Zoom Bible study with a few other ladies going through the Thessalonian letters. It was very beneficial. So this year I want to go through another book and have asked a friend to journey through it with me. I need the accountability of another to keep going through the book to the end. And I need the companionship of another as we dig into the book and talk through its meaning and pray together. I often do so much study by myself, and I like being by myself, maybe too much sometimes - and maybe I have overdone being by myself throughout this pandemic. Now, this doesn't appear on my intentions list that I made last month, but maybe it should. It felt like a clear directive from the Lord. It can also give me more to study in the months ahead, looking at what the Bible says about being in community together, being encouraged by one another, etc.

Last year I made a video that walks through how to use the websites I use when doing a word study.

So, now we have a few ways to get us started in exploring our word of the year through God's Word: Do a word study, study synonyms of your word, study a concept. Again, we will explore studying concepts more next week when we explore creating Bible studies from our intentions.

If you have a word that you are struggling to find in the Bible or if you have any questions about any of the steps to doing a word study, please feel free to email me, marybrack@gmail.com. Or start a conversation in the Words Art & Faith Group on Facebook.

I hope you'll try doing a word study this week and see where God leads you!

2021 Vision Board

 

2021 Vision Board

One of my favorite activities each year is to make a vision board for my word of the year. A vision board is a way of visualizing your intentions. I make my vision boards on wrapped artist canvas so that I can hang them, having a constant visual reminder of how I am going to journey with my word through the year.

The process begins with going through the magazine pages and clippings I have collected through the year. Whenever I weed out old magazines to go to the recycling bin, I first go through them and tear out any images or pages with interesting words. This gives me a supply of images and words to go through when I do projects.

I then take the images and words that fit with my intentions and my vision for my word and I begin to play with the layout and the groupings of words. This is a process of elimination time as I always have more words and images than I need. It is a form of meditation as you go through the words and arrange them. I am usually surprised with what I finally end up with. I tend to do this process on a large piece of cardboard or poster board so I can play with it for a few days.

The next part of my process is to cover the edges of my canvas with torn text from old books. 

I glue the pieces of paper around the edge to the backside, folding it on the corners in the same manner as I do to the sheets on the corners of my bed. 

Once I have all the sides covered I will apply a thin layer of gesso to make the text a subtle neutral background. I can then hang the canvas on my wall without framing it as the book text gives the sides a finished look.

Here is my final product.

January has been a good month of digging into the meaning of our word, setting intentions and a vision for it, and finally, making a vision board. These are all foundational practices for living out our word of the year.

For February I'm going to look at different ways of digging into God's Word with our word of the year. I hope you'll join me! You can follow along and share what you do with your word in the Words Art & Faith group on Facebook or on Instagram. Use #wordsartandfaithgroup and #wordoftheyear2021so I can easily find your posts.

Rhythms of Daily Life January 25th Edition

 

Rhythms of Daily Life January 25th Edition

I'm finding it hard to believe that we are in the last week of January already. The month has flown right by. But today I land on the day we celebrate the birth of my daughter, Jamie. Happy Birthday, Jamie! 41 today. That time has flown by also, and I honestly don't know how I got to be as old as I am. I sure don't feel like it in my mind. LOL!

So far, I like the flow of my art/creative projects this year. Capturing the things in my week that I want to remember in a visual commonplace book is going well. It's a good pace that enables me to make a little art each day. Here are my weekly spreads for weeks 3 and 4:

My 100 Day Project

This collage corner with the bird on it inspired me to do the 100 Day Project this year. I wasn't sure if I was going to participate this year as it is beginning January 31st, which is two months earlier than normal. But that little bit of inspiration got me excited, so beginning on the 31st I will do 100 days of bird art - mainly collage, of course. I made a junk journal with 100 pages to put my daily pieces of bird art in.

My Word of the Year: Rhythm

Each year I make it a habit to select a Bible verse or passage to use as a theme with my word of the year. This year I chose Matthew 11:28-30. I made a page with the passage to go into my journal.

That's all for now. Have a good week!

Setting Intentions For My Word

Setting Intentions For My Word

Over the years it has been my practice to set intentions for my word of the year. If my word of the year is a lens through which I will view life, then setting intentions are the practices through which that word will become a practice in my life. In other words, how I intend to live it out. 

I am often asked what the difference is between intentions and goals. I think the main difference between goals and intentions is in how you view them. Goals are usually specific in nature and are future oriented. I want to save 100.00 each month or I want to lose 20 pounds. Intentions are usually focused more on daily living in the present moment and lean toward habit forming and lifestyle. Both play a role. In fact intentions can help us meet goals. But I tend to prefer intentions because I think they help create a lifestyle or mindset instead of just completing tasks. Intentions can help us become the type of person we want to be. So instead of simply setting a goal of how many pounds I want to lose, instead my intention is to eat healthier for my overall health. As I work on that I may or may not lose the pounds but will gain so many other health benefits. If I simply have a goal of losing ten pounds then every time the scale doesn't change I feel like I have failed.

Here is a brief, basic rundown of goals and intentions from various definitions I found online:

Goals	Intentions
Future oriented	Present oriented
Concrete, tangible, specific	Aspirational, values-based characteristics
Action oriented	Way of being
Usually have a fixed outcome	Often ebb and flow as you grow
Generally more outwardly focused	Generally more inwardly focused
Usually focused on an end result	More focused on day-to-day living

I think both goals and intentions are valuable. However, I do tend to lean more toward using intentions, and here is the main reason why. To me, setting intentions is about making choices in my daily living that focus on who I want to be more so than on what I want to get done. And this is based on one of my personal core values: Doing flows out of being. Who I am is more important than what I do, and I want what I do to flow out of who I am. Who I am is about my character and my heart. I can change behaviors or habits and still have no change in my character or outlook. Because I also value authenticity - I want what I do to reflect who I am, or put another way - I want my actions to reflect my heart. And my heart is continually being transformed as I intentionally seek to be formed in the image of Christ. I wrote about having a set of personal core values last week. You can read it here.

So, I focus on intentions when looking at how I want to live out my word of the year. And I keep my values before me as I set those intentions. Then setting goals can help me put action to my intentions. But all of it is determined by my "why" - the values that guide my life. 

My word this year is rhythm. As I said last week, my vision for this word is to study and know the rhythms of Christ's life and to examine the rhythms of my own, tweaking and developing the daily and weekly rhythms that help me stay focused on my values for becoming who I want to be.

    My intentions are divided into the categories I want to focus on this year: 

• The Rhythms of Christ's life - studying His words and His ways in the Gospels, studying my theme passage this year Matthew 11:28-30, and studying how the New Testament calls us to be Christlike.
• Unforced Rhythms of Grace - this is from Matthew 11:29 in the Message Bible. This is about practicing spiritual disciplines and setting a rhythm for my spiritual life that helps me focus on how I live it out. 
• Rhythms of Daily Life - I'm making weekly page spreads in a visual commonplace book this year to help me connect more with the moments of my days that are significant to me. The rhythms of my daily life is focused mainly on my creative life and participating in creative groups and projects. This year that includes my Words Art and Faith Group, Life Documented 2021, the One Little Word class with Ali Edwards and the 100 Day Project, plus whatever comes along later in the year.
• Healthy Rhythms - I am on a continual journey to improve the way I eat and the way I live. I will begin my 6th decade this year and I want to fully enjoy the decades ahead of me and remain active, so I need to continue to make changes and choices that support that desire. Mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically.

What are your hopes for your word this year?

What intentions would help you live out your word n a manner that would help you be who you want to be? Do they align with your personal core values?

What goals will help you move toward your intentions?

Feel free to share in the comment section below or in the Words Art & Faith Group on Facebook.

Next Friday I will look at making a vision board for my word. So start collecting your magazine words and pictures.