This series, on Elizabeth George’s Putting on a Gentle and Quiet Spirit (amazon link), started out as a promise to my daughter.  We wanted to spend tim in Bible study together.  But big stresses got in the way and it was pushed aside.  I pushed it aside.  I was overwhelmed this time, last year.  That overwhelmed feeling followed me through the fall into the holidays.  I stopped doing the study with my daughter and for the blog.  I stopped blogging.  I was kind of in survival mode.

Out of this difficult time, God gave me a word that turned things around: Integrity.  And I had wonderful friends here in Phoenix that walked alongside me.  And I enjoyed good counsel from Carey Bailey, my blogging friend.  It was Carey, in her “life coach mode” that encouraged me to pick this study up when the storm was over.  To finish the unfinished business.  Now I am also spending time off the blog doing the study with my daughter.  What a blessing!  Closing the loops.

God’s timing is perfect.  And His Word is life.  What a privilege to study and write about it.  And you, feel this privilege of being permitted to read about it?  Peter’s First Epistle was written to persecuted Christians.  We see in the news how the Church is under constant attack in some places.  If you are reading this, if you own a Bible (or several), if you can openly attend church…you are blessed with a abundance of peace that many others do not enjoy.  Be thankful!

Be good stewards of the gift of God’s Word.

Read it. Study it Commit it to memory.  Apply it to life.  Allow it to change the way you think.  Not everyone has the opportunity to do this, like you do.  We should ask ourselves, why did God place us in a country where we would have unlimited access to Him?  And we must consider: are we living like this life-giving Word has transformed us?

Please let me know if there is another Bible study you would like to do together.  What did you think about video on the blog?  What is your take home message from 1 Peter?  I pray we each have a profound encounter with the Word, this week!