I can’t believe we’ve almost made it to the end of our study on the life of Leah. It seems like the weeks have been passing by too quickly. This week is one of my favorite weeks in the entire study–didn’t you just love the homework?
The perspective this week offers is invaluable as we step outside of Leah’s story and begin to see how her life fits in the bigger picture of God’s story and His plan to bring Jesus into the world to save sinners. Just like Leah, each of our lives play a role in God’s bigger story too. So it’s important to always be looking around to see how He is at work in the people and places that surround us.
Let’s jump right into this week’s video. If you are reading this via RSS feed click here to watch.
Summer Bible Study Week 6 from Shannon Primicerio on Vimeo.
Tags: feeling overlooked, feeling unloved, God's bigger plan for your life, Shannon Primicerio, summer Bible study
I totally get you. This Bible study has helped me grow so much.
Wow, I can hardly believe this summer Bible study is almost over. I have enjoyed it so much! Learned so much! Been so very encouraged!
I love how the Lord has made clear to me through your words, Shannon, and His own, that He roots for the underdog! He is near the brokenhearted! He exalts the humble. That fact has been made so very clear to me this week and I so needed it to be. As I approach college and God’s plan for me in that, I am excited to see what God does in, through, and for me. Yet I am also incredibly nervous and scared. So many “what if” questions. I’m so glad I can rest in the knowledge that God’s promises are true. My favorite promises would have to be God’s promises to never leave me (Deuteronomy 31:6 and Hebrews 13:5), to always hear me (Isaiah 65:24), and to teach me through His Holy Spirit (John 14:26).
I look forward to hearing what everyone else’s favorite promises are!
My word that I am praying for each one of us as we go through this Bible study is openness. At first, I thought it sounded more like a word that would have been applicable back in the first weeks and chapters of the study, but I would like, as we wind up here, to have more openness of heart, mind, and life. So I’m praying that the Lord would open our eyes to His plans and purposes for us (and that we would have the courage to obey and see His grand plans unfold!) and also that as we leave this study, our hearts would remain open to the many more things He wants to teach us. Have a great week, girls! Thanks to Jenna for that sweet comment under last week’s post, too, by the way!
I like the waves in your hair, Shannon! I’ve really loved the reminder a few times during this study that nothing can thwart God’s plan no matter how long it takes or how impossibe it feels. When trials are sustained for a period of time it can really wear us down and it becomes easy to doubt whether or not God is really there and if He does have a plan.
Rachelle- I’m so glad you have been praying for openess for all of us! God is really speaking to you because I have been praying that God would open my eyes to His plans and purposes in my life because I simply don’t know what they are at the moment.
Jenna- i love your quote from last week and that you were open about sometimes feeling like Rachel. If I’m being honest I can identify with both girls too. A lot of my life I have been called “pretty” but no matter how many times I hear it, I don’t feel pretty and I don’t see pretty when I look in the mirror. I’ve spent a lot of my life struggling with illness and have been in the hospital a lot. One time I was very very ill and my mom was explaining to the nurses about some of the things I have gone through and they looked at me and said, “but you’re so pretty” and all I could think was, “how does that make it better?”
I”m learning that what is seen on the outside isn’t always reality. Just because it looks good doesn’t mean its right and just because people look like they have it all doesn’t mean they do. Sometimes people with the least have the most joy and the biggest hearts and maybe that’s why God chooses to work through them.
Tonya – That’s so neat that what I chose to pray for is what you were already praying for! I actually took longer to choose the word for this week (or hear God whispering it to my heart) than any of the previous week. I’m glad I waited for the one that felt right!
Rose- i’m glad you were faithful and patience
enough to wait for the right word! god has blessed you with a gift.
Shannon said she would like for us to say our fave promise in the Bible, so decided to put down:
Isaiah 41:13
“For I am the Lord, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you; Do not fear, I will help you.”
This verse has helped me through so much in my life, and I hope it will help one of you as well.
I love that promise, Elin!
GRRR!!! I just typed out a HUGE long comment and then our power went out for a second and it was all lost. *sigh*
Shannon, I just finished the book work for this weeks Bible study. The part that hit me the hardest this week was about how Leah never really acknowledged her best blessings, her kids! She spent a great deal of her life pining and praying for a specific blessing and she was so absorbed with that ONE thing that she missed the joy of her children! She missed it! The very thing she was created for she forgot to thank God for! How much misery she might have spared herself if she had surrendered her desires to God and cheerfully trusted His will! And here’s where it comes into my life, I wonder what blessings am I missing because I’m so wrapped up in MY will instead of seeking God’s will? There’s a great reminder in the song “Count Your Many Blessings”!
My favorite promises..I have waaay too many to post them all here, but a few choice picks are: Is. 49:23b, Is. 30:20-21, *Is. 25:8-10, 2 Corinthians 4:17….along with all the ones the other girls have already mentioned! There are so many wonderful promises and I would be destiture without even one of them!
While I was thinking about how Leah missed some great opportunities for praise and joy (see above comment) I also wondered, so which promises am I taking for granted? 1 Corinthians 10:13 is definitely one, along with 1 John 1:9. It’s soooo easy to take God’s promises for granted..because they are!!!!
Jenna- you’ve got me thinking!
I have a lot of promises I like but I just read James 5:7 and was impressed with how God waits for the perfect time. Not only are we waiting for His perfect time to work but He is waiting for the perfect time
to work in us!
Jenna and Tonya, the references ya’ll left were so intriguing, you sent me straight to the Word! I love the promises each of you chose. I gained some new favorites.
Also, in response to your first comment, Jenna, I also think it heartbreaking that Leah realized God’s purpose for her life but never rejoiced in it. I don’t want to end up that way, either. I think the secret to that is in 2 Corinthians 4:18 (which I just read because you mentioned the preceding verse).
A habit I started a few months ago which has encouraged me and helped me to remember that God’s promises are real and applicable to my daily life is having a promise box. This is a medium-sized box full of 365 slips of paper on which are written some of the many promises of God from the Bible. They are folded, so I can’t peek! I choose one at random each day and thoroughly enjoy reading God’s word to me for the day! I usually start out my daily quiet time with this practice because my heart is overflowing with love for Him after I have just read of how His heart overflows with love for me!!
I am delighting in the fellowship here, girls!
I LOVE how this Bible study has become such a community. Even though Monday is our last day of study I want you all to know you can keep using the comments section on my blog (or my Facebook page) as a way to chat with each other and other girls like you who are going through the same stuff. This is what doing life together is all about and I love what I am seeing. You girls make my heart smile
Rose, I LOVE your idea about a promise box!!! That is so cool!
Shannon, that’s it! You’ve captured my feelings about this study group. Ya’ll make my heart smile too!
P.S. I just started a new blog and would love it if any of you felt like checking it out. http://www.godslittleburd.blogspot.com Please also keep in mind that I am just starting out.
You did good Jenna! I started blogging last winter and am still trying to figure it out
Shannon, I’m so glad this fellowship doesn’t have to end! I love it!
Jenna, I like your blog! Keep it up!
I really enjoy how that same video shows up before you start your lesson, you never take it off and it makes me watch it everytime and I love hearing it all the time. Also, I really like how you relate so many Bible verses to what we are studying. It shows that you can always go to the Bible and possibly find the answer you need. Here are some promises that I found on biblegateway.com. “I will listen to what God the LORD will say; he promises peace to his people, his saints— but let them not return to folly.” Psalm 85:8
“I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” Genesis 28:15
I feel like God wants me to be a leader. I also want to be one. I have always dreamed of going on mission trips and helping the needy. I think God would really enjoy that and I could possibly bring more people to him and get more people to see the glory God has given them.
Amen to how nobody can thwart God’s plan for me. I know htat my future is in good hands because God has it all figured out for me. Thanks for everything this week Shannon.
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