Bible Study for Busy Moms

When we put the words of God into our hearts, they will come out in our words and actions.

A few years ago, I compiled a list of verse selections about God, one for every day of the year. I wanted to improve my prayer life and realized I needed to know God better in order to pray to Him. Writing out the verses by hand over a year seemed to be an effective way to slow myself down, take the time to absorb what they were saying and produce a collection I could go back through when I needed reminding.

There is science behind the value of pen and paper. Writing things down by hand creates more brain activity across different brain regions, which may help to lodge it more effectively in the memory. The most significant benefits may be when children are learning to differentiate letters. Still, in an age where we are offloading brain work to digital devices, it is a simple way of keeping the brain active.

If you want to read more about this subject, just Google “value of writing by hand.” It is also a way of slowing down a bit when we are increasingly used to having everything right now. Instead of trying to absorb a whole chapter or subject, it made me focus on just what this one thing had to say. 

It may be obvious to most people, but it took me a long while to fully appreciate how little things add up to big things. I first really appreciated this fact when watching my children learn to read. The progress each day was so small, sometimes not even noticeable, but at the end of the year, they would be doing what wasn’t possible at the beginning. I often tend to do something all at once, as fast as I can, to the detriment of other necessary tasks. I have to force myself to slow down, do just a little bit today, a little bit tomorrow, and a little bit the day after that. The side benefit is that it begins to form into a habit.

Although it can be difficult to evaluate our own growth or how we have changed spiritually, purposeful, small, daily interaction with God’s Word over the course of a year will have a positive effect, like a tree planted by a consistent water supply. Growth just naturally happens. When we put the words of God into our hearts, they will come out in our words and actions.

There are so many invaluable resources available now for Bible study, but it can still seem like an enormous task when you put a massive book down in front of yourself and think about all you don’t know and all you want to know. We have a tradition of daily Bible reading, which is a good thing but can sometimes create a bit of stress for those who are perhaps not readers or are in difficult periods of life where time is hard to find. Writing out a verse or two every day is a small task, but at the end of the year, that small thing has multiplied. 

I have continued to create a new list of verses around a theme for the past few years, which I have shared on the Magnify Him Together website (www.magnifyhimtogether.com/scripture-writing-plan). It has been a way of staying motivated and connected to faith for myself, and I hope sharing it will help others to do the same. My goal is to help those in a busy season and struggling to find time to sit down and do Bible study or those who just need a starting point. Here is a year-long study broken down into small bits that you could squeeze into your day or use as a springboard into even more connection with God’s word.

If you want to try verse lists, pick a subject you want to know more about and divide it into twelve months of related topics. Concordance searches for various words can help to work up a list of applicable verses, or another option is to choose a book of the Bible and divide it into manageable sections of a verse or two. Get a notebook and pen, and you will be all set.

Alternatively, to create your verse lists, you could print off your choice of the monthly verse lists from Magnify Him Together or one of the many options available on the Internet. You may not want a plan at all, but just start writing out a particular book. Once you have that all sorted, all you have to do is spend a few minutes each day writing out the verse selection. You can tie it into your morning coffee or before-bed routine and think about it a bit more during the day or before falling asleep.

If you want to spend more time, I like to underline and circle important and interesting bits and look up a few words in a Lexicon or check out a Bible commentary. It can also help to read it in a different translation and research the context to understand better what the Bible is saying.

I do understand that a year may seem like a formidable commitment, and it can be off-putting when you start something like this and then miss a few days, and then a few weeks, and then catching up seems too overwhelming, so you quit. It has happened to me numerous times. You may not want to spend an entire year on one theme, but I have found it to be good discipline. My solution was to create a planner for myself for the year that included the verse for the day and room to write it out.

I made this available on Amazon for those who were interested. If I miss a day or a week, I don’t try to catch up unless I have time and want to. However, it is there in front of me, and mostly, I just continue with the day at hand. Over the years, it has helped to build this simple task into something I enjoy and miss if I don’t complete it.

By the end of this year, I will have written out the book of Proverbs, which has been enjoyable and interesting. Although I have always known the Proverbs were full of practical advice, I needed to take the time to think about how to apply the various bits of instruction to myself. Although I knew wisdom was essential, I hadn’t differentiated it from knowledge. Now I know more about that and have a new appreciation for why the fear of the LORD is the foundation of wisdom. Working through something slowly has allowed me more time for thought and absorption.

For 2025, my plan, God willing, is to soak in words and experiences that help me feel and understand the goodness of God. It feels like something I need at the moment, and I’m sure other people feel that way too. Hopefully, it will combine two things I enjoy very much: writing out a daily verse and noticing Creation (experiencing God through His words and His works). One of my reasons for choosing this theme was an article I read that suggested that people today have less of a problem believing there is a God than they do believing He is a good God. Of course, this has been an age-old question and will continue to be, but an element of this problem is that humans are much better at taking note of what they don’t like than fully appreciating what they do.

So, if you are struggling with motivation or time to interact with the Bible in your day, I think that with a little determination, this is an excellent way of forming a little but valuable habit. It may not always seem like you are getting anywhere (like anything that takes time), but it is a way of doing what God asks all of us to do: to listen.

Julie Snobelen,
Halifax Ecclesia, NS