May 10, 2011: Bible Study Play Tools

My most recent food: 

God time? Yes

Exercise? Yes

[P] Jumbo egg white

[P] Chicken sausage

[V] Mixed veggies

[V] Mixed veggies

[V] X

[F] Gala apple

[F] X

[F] X

[St] Kashi

+*[St] Dunkin Donut

[St] Brown rice

[D] Skim milk

[D]Skim milk

[Sn] Nightfood bar

[Sn] X

[Nightfoodbar] Yes

[W] Four cups

Can you tell that I've been struggling with tracking my food and posting to my blog? I'm sorry I've abandoned you for quite a few days. My sleeping has been off, and work has been erratic to say the least. And it is seeming harder and harder to keep my commitment to this experiment, even when I take it one day at a time. The hardest thing for me with tracking and blogging, as in all other areas of my life, is not giving in to the "I don't wanna" syndrome. I must have grown up with a greater lack of discipline than I even thought before: I consistently fail to stick with things because my "inspiration" runs out, and I'm not experienced at persevering with something when that happens. I tend to think that I must feel the feeling before I commit, or continue to commit, and that (as well as terminal inertia) is perhaps my greatest character defect, which I am trying to overcome with God's help. So, I don't want to be writing this post but am doing it anyway because I said I would back in January 2011.  

I have a new tool to use for my own private Bible study: Discover the Bible for Yourself by Kay Arthur. It was sent to me by mistake along with a book I ordered through Paperback Swap. It looked good, so I transferred one of my credits to the sender and kept it. It's a method of inductively studying the Bible by yourself or with other. I had no idea at the time what "inductive study" meant, but it required colored pencils, so I went for it, LOL. Color hooks me every time!

I'm still not sure where the book is going, but it has charts to write in and has me highlighting words from the Bible in different colors for later study (looking for themes, etc.), plus it asks insightful questions about each book of the Bible, so I'm going to keep playing around and see what comes out of it. I'm trying right now to use it in conjunction with my Bible study survey class, but marking the key words is very time-consuming (albeit fun), and the Bible study requires a lot of reading each week, so I'll probably end up saving it for later study on my own. I wanted to study the books of the New Testament in greater detail anyway. I think I'll take the book to class this Sunday for "show and tell," LOL. I love to play!

What tools do you use to study?