A Deeper Leading

Psalm 32:8 (NLT) ⁸ The Lord says, “I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you.

I woke up the other morning, took my babies to school, saw my husband off to work and then settled on the couch ready to study and read some of God’s word…and I found myself unsure of what to study.  I’m noticing that if I’m not doing a particular study; whether through an online bible study, a study with friends or from what I’ve learned in church…then I don’t seem to have a direction or guidance as to what to read.  Plainly put, I don’t seem to be as in tuned or focused with the leading of the Holy Spirit for my own private studies as I would like to be.   

I’m certainly not knocking group bible studies or close friends getting together to read, study and talk about God’s word;  in fact I do both and I totally love each of them.  It’s sometimes amazing and eye opening to see the views or ideas of the others in the group.  While the bible is God’s truth, sometimes He may choose to interrupt it a little differently to each one of us and sometimes we can read the same verse a good while later and get an even deeper or different meaning out of it than we did the first time around. 

However, through my maturing in Christ I’m realizing that it requires more of me than to just read along with others or to study this and that as a group, but instead I need to be led by God to study and read things that apply to my individual life and circumstances.  Thinking back I remember I used to say a small prayer before reading the Bible that God would open my spiritual eyes and ears to see and understand what he wanted me to out of the reading and for some reason I have shied away from that. 

My prayer for myself today is that God will begin to lay on my heart the things that He wants me to know and study on a personal level.  My desire is that, through the prompting of the Holy Spirit, my spiritual eyes and ears will become sensitive to the leading of God and the things that He wants me to see, do, say and know.  I guess my ultimate goal is to gain an even deeper relationship with my Heavenly Father so that I’m not always seeking someone else to tell me or guide me on what to read or study. 

So with all that being said, I will incorporate into my daily prayer that God will reveal to me specific chapters, stories and verses in the Bible that will speak to me on a personal level. I have to say that I am actually very excited to see where this will take me; to see where God is going to lead me in my personally spiritual growth and how this is going to deepen my relationship with Him.