God's Word Archives - Heart Talk with Linda Rooks

If My Words Abide in You

August 18, 2021 by Linda Rooks Leave a Comment

IT’S SO INTERESTING TO ME that the more we allow God’s Word to abide within us, the more we begin to understand His words. I remember a time when I thought, “Well, I’ve read through the Bible, and I’ve even read these books of the New Testament two or three times. I know what they say.”

I wondered why it was important for me to read them again . . . and again … and again, reading the Bible over and over each day throughout my life as a Christian.

But one day recently, after having spent considerably more time in the Bible, I found myself talking to someone and words of scripture were coming off my tongue as I tried to encourage her. And in my prayers I found myself praying with words of scripture.

All of a sudden I realized, this is what it means when Jesus says, “If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you can ask what you desire and it will be done for you” (John 15:7). He truly, honestly wants His words to actually live in us so they roll off our tongues in prayer and in encouragement to others. He wants us to become so immersed in His Word that His words automatically come to our minds when we are worried or in fear. He wants us to read His Word over and over until His words are pressed into our soul and minds.

I remember at various times in the past hearing someone praying whose petitions were punctuated with words from scripture. Their prayers were powerful and I could feel the Spirit of God as they prayed. So as I pondered this new truth God was revealing to me, I realized one of the reasons these people’s prayers were so powerful is that they have the Word of God living within them. They have become so familiar with God’s Word that the Spirit enables them to call it up when they need it.

In addition, over the years, prayer warriors I’ve known have impressed upon me the power of praying scripture back to God. I have even written about this because I’ve experienced the truth of it. Finding a scripture that pertains to our need and praying it back to God adds a powerful dimension to our prayers. Prayers are more powerful when we repeat God’s Word back to Him.

So the question becomes, how does this happen? How do we get to the place where God’s Word is “abiding” in us so we can recall it when we need it?

Some people recommend scripture memory. Memorizing basic passages like Psalm 23, John 3:16 and 1 Corinthians 10:13 can deposit important truths into our spiritual bank account so they are readily available when needed. For me, however, whenever I attempted to memorize Bible verses or passages out of context, I felt like a dismal failure. While I might remember the first couple of verses, the endeavor seemed a bit too cerebral for me to put my heart into it

Now I think – was memorizing scripture the answer or is there more?

While memorizing scripture is a valuable spiritual exercise and plants life-giving truths into our minds for later reference, I believe there’s an even deeper dimension to this. When we regularly read the Bible for ourselves on a daily basis, soaking up God’s truth, we will gradually absorb God’s Word into our hearts and minds so that it lives within us. We can underline favorite verses or passages that stand out to us so we can go back later and be reminded of truths God has previously highlighted for us in the context of His larger message. Gradually, His words weave themselves into our thinking.

It’s a matter of just spending time with God each day—in prayer and in His Word, calling on Jesus to open our minds and hearts to enjoy a deeper experience with Him. Not only will our understanding of God’s ways become more meaningful, but our prayers will become more powerful. Then we will understand what it means when He says to us, “If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you can ask what you desire and it will be done for you” (John 15:7).

If you’re in the midst of heartache because of marital troubles, I’d like to share with you my own discoveries of how God can use this time to take you deeper into Him. You will find this and more in my book, Broken Heart on Hold, Surviving Separation.

Filed Under: God's Word, Jesus, Knowing God, Peace, Prayer, Time with God, Trusting God, Truth, Trying to understand, Where is God? Tagged With: Bible, faith, God's Word, Knowing God, peace, prayer, seeking answers, Understanding the Bible, what to do

When Dreams Aren’t Coming True

September 26, 2019 by Linda Rooks Leave a Comment

One morning I sat on my screen porch praying and seeking God. Discouragement hung heavy on my heart. One of my life dreams just didn’t seem to be coming true. Writing had been my passion since the sixth grade. I wrote for the school newspaper in junior and senior high. I majored in creative writing in college. My desire to be a writer stuck with me continuously through life, even as various detours caused that dream to drop by the wayside again and again. Some of those detours were God driven, and I willingly followed His lead, using my passion for writing in each of those endeavors. Gradually, local opportunities surfaced.

When the bottom dropped out of my life through a heart-breaking three-year separation from my husband, God began to prepare my heart to go deeper into Himself and into the plans He had for me.

In the year 2000 after my husband and I reconciled, the doors opened for my writing. I published my first article in HomeLife, then Focus on the Family. I became a contributing writer for Tapestry, a Walk Thru the Bible devotional for women. More significantly, through the heartache I had suffered during our separation, God planted seeds of healing and grace that resulted in my writing Broken Heart on Hold. Four years later, I received my first book contract for it. Through the trauma of heartache, my dreams were finally coming true.

But like so many of us I was satisfied for only a little while. Eventually, I wanted more. The book proposals and drafts I wrote for two more books went nowhere. My agent faithfully persevered with me through one rejection after another. The rejections were kind: “She writes well,” “Great concept.” Etc. But they were rejections, and I didn’t understand why God was not allowing me to publish other books that would lift up His name.

A New Revelation

That day on my screen porch as I prayed and spilled out my heart to God in disappointment, I asked God why, why had I not received the blessing I was seeking. As I prayed, a scripture came to mind that had been hooked into a tab at the top of my bathroom mirror for years.

“If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you can ask what you want and it will be given to you” (John 15:7).

I had glanced at the scripture often. Abiding. Abiding with God. Yes, that was something I desired and tried to do.

“I’ve done that, Lord,” I said aloud. “I have abided with you. Through all those painful times, I abided with you. I pray all the time. You know that, Lord.”

In the stillness of my heart God answered me. “But that’s only a part of the promise, Linda. Yes, you’ve abided in me. But what’s the last part? And my words abide in you.” Have my words abided in you?”

My mind immediately skipped back to a Beth Moore Bible Study I had recently completed and a story she had told in her Breaking Free video where she told about a woman to whom God abruptly and forcefully spoke an admonition into her heart and mind saying, “Get in my Word!”

Those words resonated with me now too. God’s voice came through loud and clear in the recesses of my mind. I suddenly saw what was lacking: it was not only my knowledge of scripture, but my time reading His Word. I was not consistent with daily Bible reading. Oh, I had read through the New Testament a few times, but only once had I read all the way through the Old Testament. And I knew they are oh so connected!

So it came as a shock to me when I realized that although I had gazed upon that scripture on my mirror for years, I had missed an important part of it.

Abiding

Acting upon my new revelation, I got in God’s Word. I began spending time in the scriptures each day. I meditated on the verses I read. I enrolled in Bible Study Fellowship, a wonderful, in depth study that digs down into God’s Word and plants His truths deep into the hearts of participants. Although God’s Word had been alive to me before, through time in more intensive Bible Study and meditation, the scriptures themselves began to live in my heart and mind so I could begin to pull them up when I needed God’s wisdom.

As time continued to unfold, I saw that God was teaching me an important lesson about our dreams coming true. When we expect God to grant our desires, but our dreams aren’t coming true, we may be missing something God wants to show us. In fact, He may have plans for us that are bigger than ours. His purposes for us may reach higher than our own limited vision allows, and we are not yet ready to receive them. That is what I saw happen to me and my writing.

This year, when I published my third book, Fighting for Your Marriage while Separated, I saw God’s hand in it at every level. A few weeks ago, when it won the Golden Scroll Non-fiction Book of the Year Award from AWSA, an association of distinguished Christian authors, I praised God that His ways are perfect and so much better than mine. He knew the plans He had for me. He knew the book He wanted me to write and publish that could bless people’s lives, families, and marriages in important and transformational ways. His plans were bigger than mine, and as I grasped hold of what God wanted to teach me, He allowed my dreams to come true in ways that surpassed my expectations.

He has plans for you too. If your dreams aren’t coming true, you may not be able to see what God is doing right now, but perhaps you too need to hunker down in His Word and let it come alive in your heart so you can see His bigger purposes unfold in your life.

What dreams do you have that aren’t coming true? What do you feel God saying to you about this right now? I love to see your comments.

If you are struggling through a difficult time in your marriage, please check out my new book, Fighting for Your Marriage while Separated

Filed Under: BOOKS, Desire, disappointment, Expectations, Goals and Resolutions, God's Word, Prayer, Trusting God, Trying to understand, unanswered prayers, Uncategorized Tagged With: books for marriage, confusion, God's Word, prayer, seeking answers, unanswered prayer

They Say . . . “What?”

February 8, 2019 by Linda Rooks Leave a Comment

Not long ago I read an article in the Wall Street Journal that debunked everything we’ve all believed about what is nutritious and what is not for the past 30 or 40 years. I was appalled. This was scientific certainty. Everyone agreed on it. There had been scientific studies. How could I now be reading an article that said exactly the opposite from what we’ve all assumed to be right for all this time?

At breakfast, I reasserted my confusion. “I don’t know what to use in my cooking now,” I said to my husband. “I don’t know what is healthy and what is not. They’ve always said . . . .”

“Who is they?” he said. “They say this. They say that. But then it all changes.” “They change.” Even who we consider to be experts – that changes too. “

I said, “Yes, I guess there’s only one thing that we can always count on as being true: God’s Word in the Bible. It doesn’t change.”

As I thought about his comment and my response, I realized how that applied to all of life. It’s so easy for us to rely on common beliefs, the current thinking about something, scientific findings, and “what they say . . . .”

But there is only one thing we can always count on as being true, and that is God and His Word. When we see one kind of truth coming from the world and another truth coming from God’s Word, which one should we believe?

Even the evidence in archaeological findings triumphs over doubters and attests to the truth of God’s Word. In the early 20^th century, critics mistrusted the Bible’s historical reliability, regarding much of the Bible as myth. But little by little, archaeologists began to discover cities and artifacts that proved the existence of previously disputed biblical accounts and locations. The Hittite Empire, referenced 40 times in the Bible, was generally considered a myth by critics until 1906 when Hugo Winckler uncovered 10,000 clay tablets that documented the lost Hittite Empire. With each new revelation, critics were forced to seriously reevaluate their criticism of the Bible’s historical reliability.

Whether it is about morality, how to live life, who God is, history, or even science, the Bible trumps the world’s wisdom. The world with its changing theories, beliefs, histories, morals, and philosophies cannot be depended on. If we build our life on those alone, we may come to a point when we look back and see that we have built our life on sand and much of our life has been fruitless. But if we build our life on the rock of God’s truth, everything we build upon that rock will stand, and when we enter the kingdom of God one day, we will hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

As for everyone who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice, I will show you what they are like. ⁴⁸They are like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. ⁴⁹But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete” (Luke 6:47-49).

Anytime we are tempted to start relying on the world’s experts to guide us through life, we can add a little levity to our perspective by watching the video below to remind ourselves of the unreliability of “they.” Sometimes we just need to laugh at ourselves and what we rely on as truth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ua-WVg1SsA