Bible Study

{Thrilled to be introducing a new contributor to All4God (look out for a few of them in the next few weeks!), an awesome friend Cassie Walker who I get to work with in the summers at Beaver Cross Camp. Cassie is great at putting up with all my abuse, and challenging me to be a nicer person – Pete}

My name is Cassandra but most people call me Cassie and some even call me Chewie. I am almost 20 years old, and am going to school for psychology in hopes that one day I will be able to help children. I live in a small town in Texas, but am originally from the great state of New York. One day I will make my way back to living there. I would like to say that I have always been a Christian but the truth is that I only took the step to begin walking down God’s path a couple of years ago. I found God while working at a Christian summer camp called Beaver Cross, which is where the name Chewie came from. There was a camper there who discovered that to him I looked a lot like Chewbacca from Star Wars and the knick name stuck. I love to work with kids which I why I took the job, but soon learned that God had a better reason for me to be there than just to have fun with kids. Over the past three summers I have worked there and with each summer I am still learning a lot and becoming even closer with God.

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Bible Study

So I have this issue with reading the Bible. I do not mean issue as in I do not want to do it, or that I think that there is something wrong with it. Quite the opposite actually. I have made it my goal to read the Bible. I want to know the lessons that God teaches us in the Bible. I want to hear His word. My issue is that this for some reason is not enough motivation for me. I always find myself making excuses to not read my bible. Most of them are pretty lame. I will either be too busy or simply find something more fun to do. I think that is my issue actually. I love to do things that are fun, and things that I love to do which for me I guess sadly has not been reading the Bible.

I have had this goal for about four months now. Mostly because during sermons I have no idea what the preacher is talking about and so I find it hard to focus during sermons. Another part is because this summer I have worked at a Christian summer camp called Beaver Cross, and everyone seems to know the Bible stories except for me. I am a leader at this camp, so shouldn’t I know these stories in order to help the children grow closer to God. Shouldn’t I be an example for these kids?

Throughout the summer my friend Peter who was another counselor at this camp was helping me to accomplish my goal. He would name a book or two of the Bible for me to read each week. When we first started this little challenge thing I was all for it. I was reading the Bible every night, and during spare time. I actually made it through the books quite quickly. I made it through them so quickly that before he was impressed, Peter was concerned. I remember him asking me if I was just reading it, or if I was studying the Bible. I told him of course that I was studying it. I was remembering what I was reading, and even discussing some of it with other members of the staff on multiple occasions, though sometimes the discussions did get heated, they were quite deep and insightful. After camp was over however, I quickly stopped reading the Bible and returned to my old ways of coming up with excuses.

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Randy who is a HUGE God fanatic (I say this is a good way, I actually admire him for this.) started taking me to these Wednesday night services at a church that some of our mutual friends go to. I am Episcopal so this service was a little different for me. How it worked was you would have worship and then the priest would give a sermon. At the end of the sermon he asks a couple of questions and then we all split up into small groups to discuss these questions. I was skeptical at first but eventually I got really into it. In these discussion groups many would bring up different Bible verses and stories, but I could not because despite spending that time over the summer reading the Bible, the information had not stayed with me for very long.

I realized in these groups that I had forgotten most of what I read; I even had trouble recalling which books of the Bible I had read. This really confused me and I could not figure out what had happened and how I forgot everything I worked so hard for. Today I found my answer.

I borrowed this book from my friend Randy that I believe will help me to accomplish my goal of reading the Bible. I borrowed it a week or two ago but just began actually reading it today. It is called How To Study the Bible by Robert M. West.

In the first chapter it talks about how before completing a task, there has to be preparation, which is no different than the task of reading the Bible. It talks about how before studying the Bible; you have to prepare your heart so that your heart is really in it. This made me realize that though I was going through the motions of picking up the Bible and reading it, it was just my mind that was retaining the information. It was not my heart. The book discusses how one cannot study the Bible like one would math or history. You have to study with your heart and mind, not just your mind. The mind forgets things, but your heart will remember things forever and apply them to everyday life which is exactly what I want to do. I am now working on preparing my heart.

I need to feel the Lord’s word, not just read it like a normal book. The Bible is not a book, that is just it’s form. Just how Jesus was not just a man, He was the Son of God in the form of man.