April 15 – Psalms 7, 27, 31, 34, & 52

Below are my thoughts from the daily Bible reading of the West Side Church of Christ. Today’s reading comes from Psalms 7, 27, 31, 34, & 52. Before reading I invite you to pray and asked God to speak to you as you read his word. Also above in the tabs is a link to the Bible reading plan.

One of the challenges in doing a chronological reading of the Bible is how much jumping around the Bible you actually do. That happens because the Bible is not organized in chronological order but in various groupings. So far we have been able to go in chronological order as we have journeyed through the first six books. But remember back in January after Genesis 1-11 we read all of Job. In a few places we even picked up a Psalm or two. Now that we are in 1 Samuel the chronological mix up is going to get into hyper drive. You will notice in the reading plan we may read a chapter from 1 or 2 Samuel as well as a Psalm or two. In a few weeks we might be reading from 2 Samuel, 1 Chronicles, and Psalms. A few weeks after that we might read from 1 or 2 Kings, 1 or 2 Chronicles, a Psalm, and even from one of the Prophets. This can get pretty confusing. To help you with that I have attached the Bible reading plan in a tab at the top of my blog right under the pictures. You can easily open it and download it from there.

 

Photo Credit: First Baptist Church Covington

To make following the reading plan a little easier let me share with you how I do it each day. I use You Version, which is the Bible app available in both the Apple Store and the Google Play store. The great thing with this program is its free and it syncs through a free account on all of your Android devices, Apple devices, and your PC or Mac. Once you log on you can subscribe to a reading plan and there are multiple to choose from. The one we are doing is the Chronological plan. This tool has made the Bible reading incredibly easy as I sit down with my iPad, droid phone, or even my computer to complete each days reading.

Today is going to be all about advice in making your Bible study and prayer time with God a little more meaningful. Let’s continue that theme as we look at our reading today. David is currently on the run. Saul is after his life. He is fearful that David will remove him from the throne and end up killing him and his family. David has now resorted to living in the wilderness, hiding out in dark caves, and changing his location often. Today we read from David himself in the book of Psalm’s. David can be attributed with a vast majority of the Psalms we find there.

What I love as I read the words of David is we are getting a glimpse of his prayer life. When things go wrong and when things go right David writes about it. I like to view many of the Psalm’s as David’s prayer journal. That’s something I have recently started to do. I have heard about it a lot, I have read about from others, and finally I decided it was time to start prayer journaling. Now let me tell you my words I write are no where near the poetic beauty of David’s. Also my written words are not as praise worthy of God as we find in David’s. But, the few short months I have been prayer journaling have been amazing. Let me explain why.

Photo Credit: Moleskin App Page

When I prayer journal, which does not happen every day, I am forced to slow down in my thoughts as I write them out … yes I write with a pen, not on paper, but on the Moleskine app for my iPad. I find this slows my thoughts down, because my writing is much slower than my typing. Now everything I am thinking does not end up written down. But let me tell you, when I am finished, I typically have been taken to a whole new place. I tend to feel peace and calm. I can just imagine David coming to this same place when finished, especially during the time when he is on the run. So friends, let me encourage you to start prayer journaling. It may not be for you right now, but give it a shot and see if it helps you in any way.

At West Side we believe highly in prayer. We are asking people to join with us in praying daily for West Side. If you would like to join us please click here and subscribe to receive daily emails containing a short prayer request for West Side. We appreciate your partnership.

A Year in the Life of Organization

In 2012 I am on a mission to organize my life more completely. I am using the Friday section of this blog to announce tools I plan to use and chronicle the changes I am making. Here is one…

Ever sense I have had a smart phone I have always wanted a note taking program that would automatically sync with my computers without having to use a cable to do so. Even when using the syncing cable, which was a lot more work than it was worth, there were always problems with what was being synched. But last year I was turned onto an amazing program that did exactly what I had been dreaming of. I am so thankful that Evernote came into my life.

Evernote is a note taking software that you can access multiple ways. You are able to access Evernote simply by going to their website and logging in, or you can download their software right onto your computer, and finally download it to your smartphone or tablet. The beauty of it all is you are able to sync Evernote across all the platforms. This has been truly revolutionized the way I take notes. While I use it primarily as a note taking software, there is much more you can do with Evernote, and I have only taped the basic possibilities of all it offers. Below is just a glimpse of what Evernote in action looks like.

I have used Evernote in a plethora of ways. Whether it is for creating grocery list, to writing down blog ideas, or even sermon notes while listening to a preacher, it has revolutionized my notes. They are now organized, all in one place, with no pieces of paper to loose. It has truly been great.

As I move forward in 2012 and really try to hunker down on organization, one area I am working on is in my daily Bible study. I have been reading the Bible using a reading plan through YouVersion, and I have begun doing something truly cool with Evernote. I have known for a long time that many of the people groups the Israelites fight against as they come into the land were far distant relatives. So as I have been reading this year, I am going through and charting the genealogies of these families. Evernote has been an amazing tool for this process. Look below at the chart I have created.

With Evernote and YouVersion I have been able to do something I have longed to do for a long time. I will now have a chart that I can  go back to and look at in the future to see where these people groups have come. I encourage you to give Evernote a try, you will be thankful when you do.