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Hello once more! Here’s what I discovered from working through Step 5 last week:

Last Week’s Work

LESSON(S) LEARNED
As I went back over my study notes, again and again, the Spirit called my attention to the word power.

• The definition, from Strong’s G1411, included power residing in a thing by virtue of its nature. This is the power the disciples received when the Holy Spirit [came] upon [them.] Friends, this is the power we Christians receive when the Spirit comes upon us, too!
• Holy Spirit power enabled Mary to conceive, men to prophesy, Jesus to survive 40 days in the wilderness with no food, men to converse in languages they did not know and speak effectively to synagogues, rulers, and authorities. It’s the only power any of us needs to be Jesus’s witness to the end of the earth!

CONVICTION
I felt convicted rereading this passage, especially verses 7 and 8: It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witness…

I can remember as a child wanting to serve God in some way, impatient to fulfill what I thought was a calling to the convent. A few decades later, more impatience led me so far off the straight and narrow path that the Lord had to physically intervene to save my soul. Not knowing what really happened that day, I called it a heart transplant akin to what David longed for in Psalm 51:10, Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

But even then, I was anxious to tell my story. More recently, I’ve been anxious to finish and publish my book. Now, through this study, I see more clearly my heavenly Father has fixed a time for the book He is bringing forth through me by His authority. AndActs 1:7 tells meIt’s not my business to know when that is.

Even so, I’m anxious to get it ready for you because I believe it will enable you to connect directly with God through His Word on your own. You won’t need me or anyone else to read or interpret or apply Scripture.

CORRECTION
The verse that corrected me from this study is one of the cross-references I discovered, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit,” says the Lord of Hosts(Zechariah 4:6 ESV). This was a prophecy through Zechariah to Zerubbabel, a forefather of Jesus whose calling was to lead Jewish exiles from Babylon back to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. God wanted to make sure Zerubbabel—and all who would read these words—realized the power for the project would not come from human hands alone, but by His Spirit working through them.

If you’ve studied with me in the past, you’re probably having déjà vu. Is God not the most patient, loving Father?! So many times, I try to serve Him in my own strength and my own power, and He consistently calls me on it, doesn’t He? I hate eating humble pie! But I’m beginning to get used to the taste.

ACTION PLAN
This time, for a change, my action plan is STOP doing something: stop worrying, stop arguing, stop forcing the book project forward. I acknowledge the truth that God has already determined the time/season for it, and no amount of my personal effort, might, or power will impact that timeline.

Our Next Study

After much prayer, I believe the Spirit is leading me to revisit some of the blog studies I did before my website went down last October. If you’re relatively new to this blog, I’ve been summarizing my study notes online since 2019. Last fall, during a family health crisis, my website went down, and I lost the published versions of all blogs prior to July 2023.

I’ve been wanting to republish them for a while. Most of them were done as I developed the DISO study method, so I’m excited to revisit them with the current, more streamlined process. I hope you’ll join me for these “Blasts from the Past,” starting with a chapter-by-chapter study of my favorite Old Testament book, Ruth. I can’t wait to dig into Ruth 1 with you beginning next week. Hope to see you then!