New inspiration... Living Beyond Yourself

I managed to get out of the house Weds evening for some "me time". Actually, it was more like, me, God, and other women time, but I got out of the house by myself for a couple of hours without a task or errand to run. That alone was liberating!

The church I belong to is starting a new women's Bible study with the series called Living Beyond Yourself, by Beth Moore. The church purchased the video series she prepared and we began it last night. Beth gave us so much insight and inspiration on the first video that I'm excited to see where it goes from here.

She talked a lot about how she knows that the main passage we are focusing on is relevant today and some of her life experiences. She's a fun speaker! My pastors wife is leading the study and she previewed the first video and her husband from the other room asked her why the speaker was yelling all the time... well, she's excited about this series and I am too!

I learned something too that made me smile. As I have begun to blog and write other places I have noticed that I use a lot of exclamation marks!!!!! Well, Beth said when she began writing studies she did that all the time too because her excitement came through in her writing. She had her daughter search one of her Bible computer programs to find out how many times Jesus used "!" in his teachings, or how many times the author of each account used one. I don't remember the final count, but it was a lot! So now I feel ok to do the same, although I'll try not to overwhelm you with them.

The main focus of this study is about the fruits of the Spirit... love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control, from Galations 5:22-23. She had someone teach us how to sign the verse in sign language and we are supposed to work on memorizing it and although I know it pretty well, I seem to always miss one of the fruits so I have to work on that.

She talked a lot and how God can work in us and through us beyond what we are capable of. Wow... I always knew it could happen that I could do something that is beyond my means if your talking adrenaline or something, but the know something you shouldn't know one got me. Sometimes when God is using us he can give us knowledge beyond our own understanding. I can only imagine an experience like that and what an eye opener that would be.

We also have "homework" between sessions that I have to be sure and get into my schedule. She noted how important it is to keep up, so I will be doing my best.

I hope to share a little with you about what I learn from this study and maybe you or the women in your church would be interested in it as well.

Blessings...