Thousands of families have begun their adventure of studying God’s Word through the National Bible Bee (NBB) Summer Study. They will be dedicating many hours to studying and memorizing God’s Word. These families will be so blessed, not by any earthly prize, but by the eternal truths that will be forever in their hearts, and the impact on their lives of a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ.
“This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.” -Joshua 1:8
The NBB Summer Study will help participants take this truth to heart and learn the success that comes through studying God’s Word.
When you feel overwhelmed
Hopefully you’re excited to get into God’s Word, learn new things and fellowship with others in your host group. But perhaps, like many of us, you are a bit overwhelmed. Maybe it’s your first time doing NBB and it is harder than you were expecting. Or maybe you were already hesitant about signing up for NBB because you weren’t sure if you would be able to dedicate a lot of time to studying. Whatever the reason is, that’s okay. Don’t lose heart! The beauty of the NBB is that you can participate at whatever level you are able. Some people study many hours a day and go for the full competition, while others just do a little bit everyday, either for the competition or just for personal study.
No matter how much time or effort you are able to put into the NBB Summer Study, God can and will work through that. The fact that you signed up (or signed your kids up) for NBB is incredible, because of what God will do through your studying of his Word.
The benefits of studying God’s Word are not dependent on us
When we begin to think that God’s Word depends on us to be effective, or that we need to put in so much time into studying it to please God, that is when the overwhelm comes in. If it did depend on us, we would be hopeless. We bring our sin, flesh and shortcomings with us when we read God’s Word. Because of sin, there is nothing we can do apart from Christ to please God or make his Word more effective in our lives.
But praise God that is not the case! 2 Timothy 3:16 says, “All Scripture is God breathed.” The Bible is God’s Word to us, which means that it’s not like any other book. It’s not just words on a page. Hebrews says that God’s Word is living and active, and Isaiah says it never returns void. In other words, God’s Word always accomplishes the work he wants it to. It is not our words that never return void, we are not the ones that give life to God’s Word and we are not the ones that work through it, God is. God’s Word is powerful and effective because it comes from him. We can rest in that, and know that our hearts and minds will be changed through any amount of effort or time we put into studying it!
How to study at your own pace
What are some ways to do the NBB Summer Study at your own pace, so that you can get the most out of it no matter what your circumstances are? First of all, start somewhere. Even if it’s just a small amount of studying a day, that is great. If you find that the Summer Study is harder or more overwhelming than you thought, scale it down to whatever amount of studying you can handle, and focus on that. That might mean you decide to do one page of the Discovery Journal instead of two. Or it might mean you only work on the shorter memory passages instead of all of them. Whether you spend 5 minutes a day studying or two hours, focus on being consistent. Build the habit of studying a little bit each day, and then go from there. You will be surprised at how much you can learn and get memorized by simply being consistent with a little bit of studying and memorizing each day. Maybe you will be able to add in more time for studying, and if you can that is great. Don’t be afraid to challenge yourself to study a little more if you can. But if you need to keep it to just a little bit everyday, that is still great. It can feel very discouraging when you miss a day, or don’t reach the goals you had set, but keep pressing on. First of all, it’s not as hard as you might think to get back on track, and second, God will work through the time that you did spend in his Word, even if it was just 10 minutes a day.
When you are at the end of your Summer Study journey, you will be so blessed through the verses that you committed to memory, the new things you learned from studying and the different perspectives you got from studying with other people. There is something incredible about memorizing God’s Word and hiding it in your heart. As the Psalmist says in Psalm 119:11, “I have stored up your Word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” The passages you memorize will take root in your heart, and God will bring them to your mind when you need it the most. Praise God that the power of his Word depends on him, not us!
Written by NBB Alumna: Victoria Hoverson
