How the Character of God Can Ground You in Life’s Hardest Seasons

Ellen Krause 0:04

At the Coffee and Bible Time podcast. Our goal is to help you delight in God’s Word and thrive in Christian living. Each week, we talk to subject matter experts who broaden your biblical understanding, encourage you in hard times and provide life-building tips to enhance your Christian walk. We are so glad you have joined us. Welcome back to the Coffee and Bible Time podcast. I’m Ellen, your host, and I’m so glad that you’re tuning in today.Ellen Krause 0:37

There are so many things we bring with us when we study the Bible. When we study the Bible our emotions, our problems and our distractions. So how do we cut through this noise to get to know God for who he is? Today, we are diving into step three of the Easy Bible Study method seeking God and his character. This is actually one of the most powerful parts of our time in scripture, because it’s where we shift from just reading the bible, gaining all that head knowledge, to truly beholding god, and when we fix our eyes on who god is, everything else comes into focus. So whether you’re struggling to feel connected in your quiet time or you’re looking for ways to go deeper, this conversation is for you. Joining me today to walk through. This is my daughter, taylor, co-author of the Easy Bible Study Method book Welcome Tay.

Detour: Wedding Planning

Taylor Mitchell 1:39

Thank you so much, so glad to be here.Ellen Krause 1:42

How are you doing with all this wedding planning?Taylor Mitchell 1:47

Yeah, so the wedding planning has been stressful. Okay, I honestly think that for me, it’s the little details that are hard to not feel stressed about, because there’s like a million and one things to do, right, and a lot of them are small but have a big impact. So you don’t want to forget them. But I am not a very organized person, so I kind of, dare I say, cling to you, mother, for guidance and to keep me on track with things. Just today, we’re actually going to be picking up the seating chart after this, and that type of stuff excites me, like seeing things come together, seeing things come in the mail.Taylor Mitchell 2:37

And, yeah, I’m very much excited just to be married and to have the honeymoon and to see everyone there and to just have fun with people. I’m very much excited just to be married and to have the honeymoon and to see everyone there and to just have fun with people. I’m hoping for just a relaxed feeling and that’s what I’m going for, but I think it’s the beforehand of getting everything together. That’s kind of like all right, we can get this part over with. But I don’t want to rush the time away either, because this is my last like at this point, basically like 10 days at home. So yeah, yeah.Ellen Krause 3:11

Well, I think it’s actually going well and you’ve done an amazing job so far, so it’s going to come together and it’s going to be beautiful. So, all right, we have digressed, like good ADHD brains do, okay. So, getting back here, I want to talk about pausing to consider what happens when we don’t take time to meditate on God’s character.Taylor Mitchell 3:41

Yeah, totally, yeah, totally. Well, let me just start off by saying a really key part to having an impactful time in God’s word is being intentional, and sometimes that means rewriting the pathways in our mind of how we have been doing things over and over and over. And for me and I’m sure I speak for a lot of people that’s sometimes lazy Bible study, which is sometimes flipping to. I know a lot of people don’t relate to this, which is why I’m going to say it flipping to a random page, a random Psalm maybe, and just saying God, teach me whatever you want to teach me. I’m going to flip to a random page and whatever you tell me I’m going to take as your word for me today. And what that does is it bypasses totally the context of the passage. It bypasses everything that’s going around in it so you can have a fuller understanding. And even as you want to study God’s character, the context of a passage is going to really shine a light on why the author has chosen to highlight those certain attributes of God and his character. And for me, if I don’t go into my quiet time with the mindset of being intentional to slow down, I’m going to be doing some fast food version of Bible reading to be doing some fast food version of Bible reading, which is going in quickly in the drive-thru giving all my requests, like the Lord is a genie and saying give me what I need for the rest of the day because I’m an anxious hot mess and I need you to just give me something to help me.Taylor Mitchell 5:18

When you’re seeking God’s character, it does have the impact to be extremely profound on the way that you go about the rest of your day, the way that you handle even mental health struggles. Honestly, knowing the character of the God that you serve and I can say this from my own personal experience of going through just major seasons of anxiety when I read God’s word intentionally to focus on his character, not to get something out even for myself, I didn’t even get to that part a lot of times about okay, well, what can you teach me for my life? I said no, god, I want to know about you. I want to just focus on you, focus on who you are, focus on your power, because I know that is what’s going to get me through the hard times. It’s not actually even learning about me, but learning about you.Ellen Krause 6:16

I love what you said and I do think it’s very important to be intentional. I also think that a lot of times our expectations for what that quiet time looks like feels like emotes is important to consider because when we sit down for quiet time with the Lord, we’re hoping to meet with him in some real and meaningful way, and oftentimes we walk away without this strong emotion or a clear answer to something that we’re facing and it can even feel like we’ve missed him.Ellen Krause 6:55

So help us understand. Let’s talk about when you don’t feel anything.Taylor Mitchell 7:03

I love that you said that. I think that’s extremely key, especially for those of us who maybe do rely more on the emotional side of us for motivation, for inspiration, for hope, that really rely on a feeling, and when those feelings aren’t there and I’m sure many of you guys can relate it’s really hard to feel motivated and to lean into the rational side of things. Christ is the cornerstone of our faith. He is honestly supposed to be the bedrock, the foundation that we’re building our life upon, everything that we hope for, everything that should instill in us peace to go throughout the day. But I’m going to say this because, like I said, everything that I say on here that I’m calling out I’m saying because it’s true of me Is sometimes we go through seasons where we’re less emotionally available with God. Maybe it feels like there are seasons where God is being silent in terms of the way he reaches us emotionally and we can sometimes take that as like well, the Bible’s ineffective for me right now, and I’m not going to go to God’s word because I’m not motivated anymore. The way that it used to reach me in a certain season just isn’t there for me now. I’ve tried praying and even that’s not really working for me. Going to church doesn’t work for me anymore. Do you see how it can be a slippery slope of okay, I don’t feel these things anymore. They just don’t work for me.Taylor Mitchell 8:45

And I was even sitting down on my bed the other day I was going to bed at night and I was thinking I was kind of. The other day I was going to bed at night and I was thinking I was kind of nostalgic, but in a little bit of a melancholy way, of how exciting it was for me the first time I read through my Bible. I had so much excitement. I felt like very motivated to keep going and it took me a long time to finish. It wasn’t like I got done reading my Bible in like a month, but I felt like I had this fire, this goal. The Lord was meeting me in tangible ways. It was a very emotional experience and even the second time I’d say yeah.Taylor Mitchell 9:21

After the second time I read through my Bible, I went into a long journey in the desert and I would even say I’m still in it where I don’t have as many emotional reactions to God’s word. And it can be discouraging, but I know. I know for a fact that our emotions should not be the only lens that we view the world. Just like we know it’s good to eat healthy food, does that mean we have to feel like we want to eat a salad in order to eat a salad? No, sometimes you just do it because you know that it’s the best for you. Do you have any thoughts on that? I know I rambled.

Finding Satisfaction in God’s Character

Ellen Krause 10:08

No, I love that, and I think spiritual maturity plays a very important part of this and helps us ground ourselves, that we can’t lean on our emotions to understand God’s character, but really when we meditate on God’s word, about who he says he is, that that can be very impactful. How does meditating on the character of God help you, tay?Taylor Mitchell 10:42

That’s a great question and I love that you’re saying this, and I think something that the Lord put on my heart to just share briefly as we talk through this in this podcast is the importance of understanding that we are made in the image of God and God made us to deeply connect with him. He’s a relational God. He wants that connection with him. He’s a relational God. He wants that connection with us and also, as human beings made in his image, we’re made to find our satisfaction in him. We’re made to find our significance in him and who he is and our security in who God is. So whether or not people realize that God is truly central to our lives, which he is, is actually extremely important in terms of how we view reading God’s word, to learn about him, because he is the center of our universe and what our souls need and crave is him, knowing him. So, meditating on God, like I said, this was extremely impactful for me when I went through a really difficult season of anxiety. I was going through a breakup. I had a lot of anxiety over health issues. I had a lot of anxiety over health issues. I was totally a train wreck in terms of my emotions, feeling anxiety all the time and I was craving God’s word. I really was, and when I went to read the Bible, I think I hit a moment at rock bottom where I was so miserable in terms of my own life and what was going on in my own life that I didn’t want to even go to the Bible and just continue to think about myself. Well, what can I learn about myself? When I’m reading the Bible, I’m like God. I I actually want to go to your word. I want to escape from that a little bit and think about you. And ultimately, when I would read through and I and I will say the Psalms were amazing for this, because I know I’ve said this before, but the Psalms are a great place to go to if you want to read about people who were going through difficult times, had those difficult emotions depression, anxiety, people who are running away from their problems and running to God to help them with their problems.Taylor Mitchell 13:11

But all that to say, there’s a lot of attributes of God that are all throughout the Psalms about him being so powerful. It puts things into perspective. It truly does, and you need that, not only because you’re made in the image of God, but also because he is the cornerstone of our life, right? He is the reason for our hope. He is the reason for all of our security.Taylor Mitchell 13:52

We will find, honestly, more satisfaction and more feelings of significance in our own life if we focus more on God and less on ourselves, which is why, in the easy Bible study method, we have this as the third step in terms of seeking God’s character. Because if our security, our satisfaction, our significance all comes from him, then we better start studying about him. We better start investing that time into knowing who he is and knowing about his character and mentor. Mom, I’d love for you to touch on this, just about how important it is to know about God’s character so that you can fight the lies that we sometimes believe from the world or just inerrantly about who God is. That isn’t true. Talk to us about how learning about God’s character changes that.

How to Identify God’s Character in Scripture

Ellen Krause 15:32

So if you know exactly what God’s word says, it prepares you, it undergirds your understanding, so that when you hear something that is not true, that automatically you should be having, you know, an aha moment in your brain saying wait a second, that is not right, that’s not what God says about me, and there’s example upon example of things that the enemy likes to twist and distort to make us think that his way is the right way, the worldly way, and so it’s absolutely essential that you understand what God says about himself in scripture. So let’s give some people some real practical tips here. What are some helpful questions that we should be asking to uncover who God is in a passage?Taylor Mitchell 16:33

That’s a great question and I’m just going to say something real brief here that we talk about in our book and if you guys want to read you know way more in depth and a whole chapter about seeking God’s character then totally recommend that you check out our book. It’s on our website, it’s also available on Amazon, just the easy Bible study method. But something that we talk about in our book just to make things really easy, really simple is when you’re studying your passage, look for the explicit characteristics of God that are said what does the text tell us about God? Very plainly, write and highlight that. That is truly the easiest way that you are going to begin honing in on God’s character. And I’m telling you it can be so easy to skip over those things if we’re trying to look for specific things in scripture that we want to get out of it and we miss the beauty of discovering what the text says about the Lord. So go ahead and highlight those explicit characteristics of God and then take some time in a separate journal and write down what you learned. Simple phrase that we just say is God is blank. So when you’re reading there’s so many attributes of God God is merciful, god is gracious, god is kind, god is slow to anger All of these wonderful attributes of God. Go ahead, write that down and take some time to prayerfully journal to the Lord about what it means to you to know that that is who he is and that his character never changes.

God’s Actions Reveal His Nature

Taylor Mitchell 18:12

I can say for myself that there’s been so many times where I’ve been greatly impacted by reading God’s word, knowing just how powerful and sovereign he is and sovereign is a fancy word of basically saying he is over everything. There is not one thing that is out of his control. And so I know for me, if I’m going through a difficult season of my life and I know that God is ultimately in control difficult season of my life, and I know that God is ultimately in control, I really can rest in knowing, okay, this is really hard right now, but God’s plan is greater. And guess what? God includes me in the plan for his greater purpose of glorifying himself and bringing us all into a saving relationship with him. So you know what?Taylor Mitchell 19:03

I’m actually not going to worry too much about the issues that are going on in my life right now, because I know that God is in control and I know that he is all powerful, there’s nothing that can separate me from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. There’s nothing and that is the power that you can unlock when you read God’s word is scriptures that have the ability to transform your situations from looking extremely bleak and depressing to, I mean, hope, undeniable hope that he does instill in you. I mean, that is a fast pass to focusing in on seeking God and his character. Highlight. Look for it, be intentional when you’re reading God’s word.Ellen Krause 19:50

Absolutely, and you know. Those are the very obvious things. I think another thing that’s so cool is that when you are very intentional, you can actually see characteristics of God in the text that aren’t directly explained.Taylor Mitchell 20:10

So for example, if the text says something like God gives generously to, or God gives to his children faithfully, you can also discern then that God is a very generous God, because you know the text isn’t telling you exactly that, but you can figure that out, you know right when you look at God’s actions, and I was even thinking about a passage in John, and I know a lot of people say the shortest verse in the Bible is Jesus wept, and the context of that is that one of his good friends, lazarus, had died, and a lot of the people that were around him were in complete and utter grief. I mean heartbreak beyond heartbreak, for all of those that know what it’s like to lose somebody. And Jesus wept. And yes, the text doesn’t specifically tell us maybe an attribute. It shows us an action.

Living Out What You Learn About God

Taylor Mitchell 21:15

But there’s innumerable things that you can take away from Jesus, just from that shortest verse in the Bible. And to just pick right off the surface, jesus is emotionally available. Okay, how impactful is that for you to know when you are going through your worst moments? Jesus is emotionally available. He has felt all the emotions because he is human, right, and not only is he human, but he’s also fully God, which means you have a God who is absolutely emotionally available and absolutely perfectly in control. That is what we need to know as human beings going through hard times, and we wouldn’t otherwise know that if we weren’t trying to seek God’s character in the passages that we’re reading.Ellen Krause 22:09

So important. So, once we’ve kind of rooted out those details of God’s character, what’s the next step someone’s going to take? We need to then apply it. We need to. How do I say? We want to live it out, be a doer of the word, as James says. So when you see something true about God in scripture Tay, what are your next steps that you take regarding application?Taylor Mitchell 22:47

That’s a great question, I think, to end on.Taylor Mitchell 22:48

Actually, and I hate to leave you guys on a cliffhanger, but that really goes into the last step of the easy Bible study method, which is why Yearning for a heart change and deeper intimacy with Jesus.

Final Encouragement and Invitation

Taylor Mitchell 23:00

So that’s the place where we take everything that we’ve learned from the context to the main idea, to God and his character, and we go ahead and try to apply that to our life. So I am not going to go into that in too much depth in this podcast, because we’re going to have a whole other podcast where we talk about this and I don’t want to steal that thunder. But for the sake of just closing this one off with a bow and you want a practical application step, like I said, the next time you’re reading God’s word, go into a passage and look for God’s character. Have that be the goal of your Bible time is to focus on him and nothing else, and take what you learned and go ahead and journal it and journal it prayerfully to the Lord, and that in and of itself is a really, really beautiful and God honoring way to spend your time in God’s word and in prayer.Ellen Krause 23:57

Wow, that was such a rich conversation. Thank you so much, taylor, for joining me, for walking through this together. I hope for those of you that are listening and watching, you’re walking away not just with ideas, but with real encouragement and a renewed sense of what it means to slow down and see God in scripture. The more we learn to look for who God is in scripture, the more we start to recognize his presence in our daily lives too, and slowly but surely, we’re shaped more into his likeness. If you’re looking for more help putting this into practice, our new book walks through the full, easy method with examples, questions, prompts, everything you need to guide you every step of the way. We’ll be sure to have a link to that in the show notes. So, taylor, one last goodbye to the audience.Taylor Mitchell 24:53

Goodbye everyone. So good to see you, and if you want updates about I don’t know photos from the wedding or things like that, because I mean, heck, this is coming up fast and it might even be I mean, I’ll be married by the time you’re listening to this Go ahead and look at our Instagram. I’m sure we’ll have it posted there. It’s just at Coffee and Bible Time and then we’re also going to be posting some videos to our YouTube channel. That’ll be kind of fun.Ellen Krause 25:18

Thank you. All right, we will be back soon with another episode, but until then, keep showing up, keep seeking God’s word, and don’t forget he is always eager to meet you there in his word. Thank you.