April 9, 2025
Want More From Your Music?
Unlock the secrets of joyful scripture engagement with Michelle Nezat, the visionary behind the More Than a Song podcast. Michelle shares her inspiring journey from a Christian upbringing to creating a podcast that bridges the gap between scripture and music.
Michelle's Website: https://michellenezat.com/unlock
Listen to Season Two- a four-part series on Christian music: https://www.honestchristianconversations.com/episodes/season/2/
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00:20 - Christian Music and Biblical Inspiration
13:55 - Bite-Sized Bible Study Techniques
23:21 - Personal Transformations in Faith
36:13 - Unlocking Resources to Deepen Faith
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Before the episode starts.
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Make sure you follow the show so you never miss another episode.
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Hey friends, welcome to Honest Christian Conversations.
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I am so excited to have Michelle Nizat with me today.
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She is the host of More Than a Song podcast.
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I love that podcast.
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It's been very instrumental in helping me find new godly songs that are out there that I can listen to and I can trust that their lyrics are biblically based, which is something I'm all about.
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And if you haven't listened to my four-part series that I did on season two about music, you definitely should listen to it, because this is the more positive side from what I took on mine.
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So I love her podcast.
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I have yet to read her novel, which I would love to read someday, and, yes, let's get to it.
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So, michelle, go ahead and tell us about your testimony, because that is what I want to know how did you get to this place where you are writing a beautiful novel and you have such a profound podcast that doesn't just talk about songs, it talks about them from a biblical standpoint and gives us a really great tool for Bible study, which I know everyone, including myself, is always looking for one of those.
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So this was definitely up my alley because I didn't have to do too much.
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You do all the hard work, which is awesome.
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How did you come to faith in Christ and get to that point where you have these two amazing resources?
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Thanks for having me, anna.
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I'm so delighted to be here.
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It's an honor.
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So I have the privilege of saying that I don't ever remember a time when I didn't know Christ, which is the best testimony, in my opinion.
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My grandparents actually led me to the Lord when I was obviously a very young child, at a time when I didn't have a memory of it.
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I remember being like seven or eight, kind of asking questions like was it real?
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Because I can't remember, and they really kind of like walked me through some of the doubts and, just continuing to seek the Lord, grew up in a church home and went off to one year of Bible college before I transferred to a state school.
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I currently live in Louisiana.
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I was born and raised in Idaho but stayed connected with church, community, biblical community, all of that, and when I became a mom I wanted to share my biblical knowledge that I had.
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Growing up we did what was called Bible quiz, where we would memorize whole books of the Bible and then quiz on them, and it was in the 1900s when we used the King James Version.
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But I will tell you, memorizing King James is actually quite as a lot easier than some of the other, just because there's so many phrases and things like that that your memory can stick on.
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But we didn't have that for my kids and so I was praying about how to get it into them and I was thinking okay, well, I remember a song I learned in summer camp 1 John, 4, 7, and 8.
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I could sing it for you.
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Right now I still remember it and maybe I'll just turn scripture into songs.
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And I tried it and it was really lame.
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It just didn't come out good.
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I mean, there are now people who do it and do it well.
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The Corner Room.
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I listen to them.
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I don't know if you've heard of them.
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They do that.
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No, I haven't, I'm going to check them out, but there's people who do it now and I'm delighted.
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But that wasn't my jam, and so I just kept on.
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And I remember also just kind of ministering to some new Christians, and one of the very first things that new believers do is they will change the music that they're listening to.
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And so I remember listening to Every Good Thing by the Afters.
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We were on our way to a vacation, family vacation, and the Holy Spirit just said see, michelle, the music's already been written.
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And I was like because in my mind I was thinking I wish my friend Stacey knew that that lyric came straight from James, because if she heard the song it might remind her of what she already studied in James, because that's what it was doing for me.
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It was reminding me of not just that phrase but also the things I knew that the word of God said around that phrase.
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And then I was like, oh, my goodness, okay, so this is the direction for this, linking music to scripture.
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But how do I do that?
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And so that was July, and in November I was at a marketing conference where this guy was just talking about podcasting and he said listen, you're trying to get found.
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You're a needle in a haystack and he was really talking about blogging and things like that.
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He said pick a smaller haystack.
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Podcasting is a much smaller haystack.
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It was when I started and I thought, oh my goodness, this is it.
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Because music is audio.
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And so, to capture the idea, if you're listening to music and then you're listening to podcasting, the link was just.
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It made sense.
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So I launched my podcast in February that next year, 2014.
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So I've been podcasting for over a decade.
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I was weekly for the longest and then I went biweekly while I worked on my novel A Seat at the Table.
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But my heart, both in the podcast and in the novel, is I want you to discover and meditate on God's word for yourself.
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And so I realized that some people, the Bible is very daunting and they don't know where to start.
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Once they get there, they don't really know how to overcome some of the obstacles of how to read it, and so I just really try to take a practical approach, never forgetting my friend Stacey, who is now a longtime follower of Christ.
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You know, and so, but at the beginning, when I just don't, I don't want it to be a source of shame or of discouragement for someone to dig in, even if they know better.
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I want, I just like it's today.
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Like today, like if you're listening right now and you said I've set the Bible aside, you're listening right now and you said I've set the Bible aside.
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I have a character in my novel that does that she had a reason and but it's today, like pick it up, don't sit in shame, don't sit in discouragement.
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That's what the enemy wants you to be.
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He wants to keep you removed from the revealed word of God which is sitting on yourself.
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So that's really how I got to More Than a Song.
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And just to kind of clarify, you're right, the podcast is not about the music.
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So basically, what I did was I said okay, look, for example, let's take the afters.
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Every good thing, every good and perfect gift comes from the father above, and that's found in James.
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Let's go study James together.
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So the music I'm always down for that.
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Yeah, yeah, the music's the inspiration, and then you just kind of set the song aside and let's go dive into scripture.
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And then at the end you say, okay, well, now that I've done all this study, when I listen to this song, let it remind me of everything I've studied.
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My big warning is don't let your music become your scripture.
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We want to use it.
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We want to harness the power that it has to remind us of scripture itself.
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I love that so much and, as I said, this was a very timely kind of podcast for me to come across because, as I mentioned, I did a deep dive into certain worship songs that may not be biblically sound, and it was like a four-part series about how some Christian authors or artists have fallen away from the faith and that we need to be careful with what we listen to, even when it comes to Christian music, and that kind of left me discouraged.
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It's like, well, what do I listen to?
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How can I trust my Christian music?
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And then, boom, your podcast shows up.
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Can I trust my Christian music?
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And then, boom, your podcast shows up and I'm like, oh, this is a perfect way for me to look at the songs and find out where it's scriptural.
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Maybe I can still salvage some of those songs that I do like, where some of the lyrics are a little off but the other ones aren't, and it's been really exciting to go into the podcast.
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I get to get my Bible and I get to look through it and maybe even find a new song, if it's one that I haven't heard, like a few of the ones that I've been listening to recently are songs I haven't heard, and you mentioned Shane and Shane in one of them, and I'm like I love Shane and Shane as well.
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Yes, I do too.
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Yeah, yeah, I mean of course you have.
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The premise is that I take songs that are playing on the radio and so I really do try to stay at the top of the airplay charts just because those are the songs that I just want to meet you where you are.
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But every once in a while I'll say but it's my podcast, so I'm going to like slip in a song here or there that I just absolutely love, cause I tend to not necessarily listen to the radio.
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I'm more of a playlist kind of person.
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And I've seen, and I've seen blog.
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Look, I I'm with you in the discouragement when I see artists who fall away from the faith and turn their back on the truth that they used to sing about that is.
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It is so discouraging to think and then to wonder how does that impact the people that maybe followed them right?
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And so I don't think that means that you leave your discernment at the door.
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There are certain songs I'm just not going to feature on the podcast, just straight up.
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I'm not, we're not going to go over those today, because what?
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I really want to do is say, find the ones that do have scripture, that do have truth.
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The other thing I want to say is they're art.
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So I think what happens is, when you try to make those songs become your doctrine and your scripture, they are going to fall flat because they're not intended to do that.
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It's a piece of art.
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However, again let's swing back to discernment.
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There are certain phrases and things like that that you really need to be aware of that just maybe are not as sound as possible.
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So just be as Paul would talk about, just be a Berean, go study it for yourself.
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You pick it up and say, okay, what does God's word say about this, and can I sing it?
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Maybe there's some songs you just can't sing in good faith, but there's other.
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I heard a pastor, vice pastor, one time just say, okay, how can I sing this song in a good conscience?
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How can I go ahead and and I'll just use a phrase I just don't think God's love is reckless.
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You know what I'm saying?
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Oh, yes, that song was featured in my season, for sure.
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But as an artist, as a human being, doesn't it feel a little reckless to love and be loved like that?
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I get where the artist is coming from.
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He's not trying, in my opinion, not trying to create doctrine that teaches us that.
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God, if you think that anywhere in scripture it says that God's love is reckless, then I encourage you to go and read and do a theme study on what God's love is defined as and described as right, so that you could go okay, no, it's not defined as reckless, but I can see, I don't love like that.
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That seems risky, that kind of love seems risky.
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So can I sing that song with that mindset?
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Yeah, I guess.
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Yeah, I'll sometimes if I'm singing it, cause like 99% of the lyrics are amazing.
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It's just that one word that he uses.
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In some people it just goes whatever.
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And then others, maybe cause we're writers or something, that it just hits us different and we're like we can't handle that word, so I'll put in a different one that, in my opinion, is more of what I think God is, and I'll sing it because it's a really good song.
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It's very biblically based.
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Just that one word just kind of trips a lot of people up.
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Right, well, and it tripped me up for a while too.
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But I'm like you, we would sing it in a church and I was like, okay, well, I can't just like leave the room.
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So how can I and when I heard the teaching from this pastor that basically said, you know, you're a mature Christian reframe it in your mind?
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However, I would say that the warning is if someone is getting their theology or their doctrine from the music that they're singing, which is how hymns why they were created, by the way.
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Right, so hymns were created to teach the doctrine and the teachings of the church.
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But I've read a couple of hymns that are like, I mean, you might have been written in the 1700s, but that's not in there, you know.
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So it doesn't just because it's new doesn't mean that it's wrong, and just because it's old doesn't mean that it's wrong, and just because it's old doesn't mean that it's good.
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Just use discernment and then just say, okay, that seems strange to me, or that seems like a strange word.
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So the next thing is, rather than having a conversation as to whether that's a good word or not, I want you to say what's a better word.
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Let's go.
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Can you describe God's love to me what words would come to mind that you know are in there.
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And if you don't have a good list, hey, let's do that, let's get together and talk about that and maybe share notes and talk about with a friend, and then you come out on the other side talking about God's steadfast love, talking about his compassionate love.
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One of the things that I I'm going to say I learned honestly very recently is that all of God's characteristics are and this is, this is a.
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I want to tell you this give yourself permission to know more today than you did yesterday.
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Right, give yourself permission to know more today.
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And I think sometimes, as as a seasoned Christian, we kind of say I should have known that or whatever, but anyway.
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So, having said that aside, all of God's characteristics are true at all times, of each other too.
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So if God is loving and he is just, then his love is just and his justice is loving.
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And so, as you are learning let's say you just got inspired to see, okay, god's love isn't reckless, then what is it?
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And you go and you do a theme study on God's love, then everything you learn about his characteristics of his love are true at all times.
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So if you learn that he's compassionate in his loving and he's steadfast in his loving those things he's not just sometimes compassionate and sometimes steadfast and then you can stack them.
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His steadfast love is compassionate, his compassionate love is steadfast.
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And then you can stack them.
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His steadfast love is compassionate, his compassionate love is steadfast.
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It's beautiful to think about things like that.
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So that's where I'm saying let's harness what we're already listening to, what we're already singing, and use it to inspire us to study and then maybe remind us of what we've studied.
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Yeah, and you've come up with a clever acronym for how you do every episode.
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Will you share that with us, what it's called, and give a brief overview of how it works?
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Sure, yeah, okay, so I have BITES.
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It helps you take a bite out of scripture.
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It's really cheesy, I know that, but you're going to remember it now.
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And it's B-I-T-E, bible Interaction Tool Exercise.
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And the funny story is, for like the first hundred episodes, I would say Bible Interaction Tool, bible Interaction Tool.
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And I realized that I was saying it over and over and so I came to my daughter and I was like I need an E because bit is just weird.
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I just want to take a bite.
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And so we said exercise, and these are just exercises that I use personally in my time in God's Word to keep it varied and active, and so they might be as simple as reading in context.
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One of my favorite bites, which is if your pastor teaches, let's say, this Sunday, and introduces a verse or a group of verses, go and read the chapter before the chapter and the chapter after, where those verses are.
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You will then be reading in context and you will have a greater understanding of the scripture, how it really fits into the whole and things like that.
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So that would be a bite reading context.
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Another bite listen.
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I just.
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I had a young man in my living room the other day he and my daughter are hopefully going off to the same college next year and he was saying I've never read Nehemiah and I was like dude, you've got to read.
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Nehemiah, it's so great.
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And he was like I just don't, cause we were talking about a scene in the story and he was like I just don't think I've ever read it.
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And I said well, here's what you do.
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We have a reader's Bible which takes out all the chapters and verses and it's just so you can just read it like a story.
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So I handed him my reader's Bible that had Nehemiah in it and I was like, put on an epic soundtrack, music soundtrack and read Nehemiah.
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Lord of the Rings is always a favorite.
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Yeah, like Lord of the Rings or Gladiator or something, or Narnia, and you've got this like swelling music and you've got these guys building walls with a trowel in one hand and a sword in the other and you've got like these enemies without and fear within and all these beautiful scenes.
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And so he was like I'm going to try that.
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He's like into film and stuff like that.
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So he's like that actually sounds pretty cool.
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So things like that simple exercises.
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A lot of times I learn them from people like you.
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Like what's your favorite way to mix it up when you are studying God's word?
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I, um, I'm reading Jeremiah right now and in chapters two through six there are 19 questions, 19.
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So I'm writing them all down, like as I as I uh go through it.
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So what is that?
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Well, that's making a list and that's like identifying repetitive, you know, words or phrases or or things, so, so those are two different bites.
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I've identified that there's a bunch of questions in here.
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When I read through it I said, wow, that's so interesting.
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Let me slow down and go back and look at those questions.
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So those are just.
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I mean I have got over 20, almost 30 bites and I add to my list all the time of just different ways that the commitment I make to myself and also to my listener is that I'm actually doing it in my own study, so I really don't want to get to a place where I tell you what I have done and I stop doing it, and that, honestly, has been really grounding for me.
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You know, because I'm just like you.
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There are busy seasons and there are just different times in life where you're just like, okay, the things that I was doing before just doesn't seem to resonate in my spirit anymore or I'm just not inspired to go read it.
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So if I'm doing that, then I just need to mix it up a little bit, try something new.
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And you know I've had listeners email me back and say, okay, you've ruined me.
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I can't read anything out of context.
00:18:37.959 --> 00:18:48.980
Now I'm like constantly reading like two and three chapters at a time, because I can't just read one verse and I was like praise God, yeah yeah, it's always important to read it in context.
00:18:49.121 --> 00:18:53.674
That's something I've been doing a lot more lately, just because you never know.
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I mean, we always cherry pick verses, but we understand, was that actually something we should be claiming for ourself or was that specific to that time and those people?
00:19:04.826 --> 00:19:21.528
And it's always interesting to read everything in context and say, oh okay, well, I understand now why they said that, right, yeah, so I definitely love the bite in everything involved in your podcast.
00:19:21.528 --> 00:19:22.589
Oh, I'm so glad.
00:19:22.589 --> 00:19:29.856
But before we get to your story, it seems that your faith has been very deep from the very beginning.
00:19:29.998 --> 00:19:33.568
Was there ever a time where you strayed?
00:19:33.568 --> 00:19:41.422
I mean, I know we all have our moments where maybe we've doubted, but did you have a moment where it was more than just a moment?
00:19:41.422 --> 00:19:43.827
Or have you always stayed close to God?
00:19:43.827 --> 00:19:51.798
Who doesn't love free?
00:19:51.798 --> 00:19:53.119
I know I do.
00:19:53.119 --> 00:19:59.375
That's why I created a free seven-day devotional for those who want to go deeper with God.
00:19:59.375 --> 00:20:08.019
It's a short devotional full of encouragement, guidance and impactful Bible verses related to everyday struggles we all go through.
00:20:08.019 --> 00:20:19.128
I know you will love this devotional as much as I enjoyed writing it and since it's digital, you can do it anywhere, anytime, perfect for the person always on the go.
00:20:19.128 --> 00:20:23.125
Get the free devotional when you sign up for my mailing list.
00:20:23.125 --> 00:20:24.961
The link is in the show notes.
00:20:25.535 --> 00:20:31.448
Yeah, I can honestly say that I've always stayed close to the Lord.
00:20:31.448 --> 00:20:38.365
However, I am closer now than I was and there were some key moments, some key turning points for me.
00:20:38.365 --> 00:20:44.840
So I have had exposure to like a Bible college where you know the people that were in Bible college were.
00:20:44.840 --> 00:20:53.310
I used to say that some of those girls were there for their MRS degree to get married and I was not like one of those.
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So in my journey I wanted to be a foreign missionary.
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I just thought that's what God was calling me to do.
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And so I went and I asked the missionary guy.
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I was like what should I double major in?
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I want to go into some of these closed countries where it's, you know, they're not like hey, come on over and you know, let's come to China and be a Christian.
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That's just not like the thing.
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That was there.
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And so he was like, oh, it doesn't matter, you're going to go wherever your husband goes anyway.
00:21:24.489 --> 00:21:47.257
So that was a bit of a turning point, because I just remember thinking, I just don't know if I can sit under the sky for four years I just philosophically, and the Lord just really turned the ship a little bit to management and marketing, which is what I ended up majoring in and graduating in and honestly using to create online Bible studies and writing and things like that.
00:21:47.404 --> 00:21:55.808
So things like where you think that you're following in one direction or that maybe you've gotten it wrong, the Lord can steer you in a different direction.
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And I was pretty faithful, you know.
00:21:58.234 --> 00:22:28.829
But I will say one of the turning points was when I was a young married, there was a program at our church where they would match older women with younger women, following the Titus, titus two kind of idea, and interestingly enough they had more younger women sign up than older women, because younger women were desperate to be mentored by older women and the older women did not feel equipped or like like they could or should do it, yeah, which was so discouraging at the time.
00:22:28.829 --> 00:22:32.551
Of course, now I'm an older woman, but whatever we won't go there.
00:22:33.213 --> 00:22:48.209
So what happened was a really good friend of mine, which we became closer through this process, got matched with one older woman, and so my friend Dana and I were sitting there with her and she looked at us and said, okay, as she's trying to get to know us, she's like so, tell me about your day, do you like pray every day?
00:22:48.209 --> 00:22:49.590
Do you read your Bible every day?
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And like, like, tell, tell me about your spiritual practices.
00:22:51.894 --> 00:22:59.132
And we were like, I mean, we, you know we, we pray, we read our Bible, you know things like that.
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She's like that's non-negotiable.
00:23:01.738 --> 00:23:15.653
And I remember sitting back and just saying, yes, ma'am, and I remember at that moment just someone saying, like it wasn't someone guilting me into some quiet time or this, that or whatever.
00:23:15.653 --> 00:23:21.092
She didn't tell me how to do it, she just said it's non-negotiable.
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You are a follower of Christ, you have to follow, and the only way you can follow is to read His word and to be like Him.
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And he was a praying man.
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And so it was a shift in my personal walk, where it shifted, I think, from not even a cultural thing, because I don't think I was ever even just a cultural Christian.
00:23:43.869 --> 00:23:47.587
I mean I was active in ministries and things like that.
00:23:47.587 --> 00:23:48.711
So that's another thing too.
00:23:48.711 --> 00:23:59.897
You could just you could have it, all all these different steps on the outside and then still be disconnected from the very place that God wants to speak to you.
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And you can listen to other sermons and you can well.
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You know what that means.
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That means they spent time with Jesus in his word and God revealed something to them.
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