Podcast

Finding Joy as We Pray and Read Through the Bible. Janet McHenry

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Unshakable Hope Podcast, where real life intersects redeeming love. I’m Kellie Hall, and this is where we wrestle through faith questions, such as how do I trust God’s heart when His ways and delays are breaking mine? We’ll hear from people just like you and me, who have experienced God’s faithfulness when life didn’t unfold as they expected.

My prayer is that God would renew our hope in His Word and His love through these conversations.

Kelly: Hey, friends

If you haven’t already, I’d love for you to sign up for my website. You can receive some inspirational bookmarks on a PDF. These are very personal to me. These are words of hope that have encouraged my heart over the years.

And also if you use the link in the show notes, you can receive a PDF entitled Hope for the Weary, which contains helpful prayers and verses to encourage you in long seasons of waiting.

[00:01:00] today, Janet McHenry is with me. And if you’re a regular listener to the podcast, you may remember she was a guest previously. We discussed her fabulous book. praying personalities. And I know that discussion brought some freedom and joy to many of our listeners.

Kelly: I’ve heard from you. So if you missed it, I’d encourage you to go back and listen. And I’ll link to that in the show notes. Janet is the author of 27 books, eight on prayer, including the best selling prayer walk. She serves on the California leadership team for the national day of prayer. You guys, she truly has a heart for helping others develop a deeper relationship with God through the study of his word in a praying lifestyle. I would encourage you to connect with her through her website, through social media. She is just always posting things that direct our heart to God’s heart and out of her passion, she has just now launched a delightful 365 day devotional from our daily [00:02:00] bread publishing. It’s called looking up, finding joy as you read and pray through the word. So Janet, I’m so thankful to have you here. Welcome to the show.

Janet: Thanks, Kelly, for having me again. I just appreciate you so much.

Kelly: Oh, thank you. And this time I remembered to start recording. You were the only guest who had to deal with having a conversation without beginning the recording . So thank you for your grace for that.

Janet: Hey, hey, extra time with you is always a blessing.

Kelly: Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. I feel the same way.

Well, I love your book. I’m just going to say you have a gift for connecting the everyday to biblical application and in a way that it’s just beautiful.

Janet: Thank you so much. It was it was a marathon of writing. I will tell you that. But at one point, one of my editors said, Janet, where are you coming up with all these stories?

And I said, well, I’m just [00:03:00] old. They collect.

Kelly: Oh, that’s hilarious. Yeah, you have some fabulous stories. And yet you just go very quickly from a story to the biblical application. But the story always, always helps expand our understanding of God’s word. And for our listeners, check out this book, which comes out November 5th, right, Janet?

Janet: Yes, November 5th.

Kelly: Okay, and it’s available for pre order now. So you, I really want you to explain this to us, reading through the Bible in a year. This is not just a devotional, you’re reading through the Bible in a year. And so I’d like you to talk about how that started for you and how it plays out in your book.

Janet: Well, many years ago, I want to say about 25 years ago a friend of mine, my dearest friend, June, who is my mom’s age, but we just, we just had an affinity for one another and hung out and did everything together. Well, one day she [00:04:00] asked me, you know, Janet, have you read all the way through the Bible?

And I said, no, I said, I’ve always gotten kind of stuck. And she asked if I would join her in doing that. So we, we went to our Christian bookstore in Reno and bought a little pamphlet that would guide our reading. And we just began doing that year after year after year. And I began her walking about the same time.

And so, it just became kind of a logical process for me as I began to be more kind of fascinated and just. interested in the idea of prayer, you know, that God wants to have relationship and, and guide and direct our steps. So I, as I was reading through the Bible, I just began marking in the margins anything that related to prayer, you know, the prayers of God’s people, anything, any teaching on prayer.

And I put a little circle P in the margin. And so it became kind of a [00:05:00] for me to, to learn more about prayer as I was reading through God’s word. And then to you know, to try to apply it in such a way that it actually sort of became prayerful.

Kelly: And I just really want you to explain how the reader is able to read through the Bible in a year with your devotional.

Janet: Oh, sure. Yeah. Each day and it goes from January 1st to December 31st. So each day the reader will find a little reading assignment like Genesis one and two. And typically those readings are just about two chapters, which really can, you know, you can get that done in about five, 10 minutes.

So, you know, if you’re focused in. And then there’s a short little devotional reading with a focused scripture and it helps the reader kind of apply at least one important principle from that day’s reading. And after that there is a prayer and then there’s kind of a, [00:06:00] an exhortation their, what we call aphorisms, which are statements of truth that’s kind of drawn out of that reading as well.

Kelly: Yeah, it is. It’s really beautiful. I love the way you do that. The statements are extremely helpful to focus our eyes and our hearts on the truth that was encapsulated in the reading. So I’m so curious what changes you’ve noticed personally in your life through reading through the Bible. What have you, what has changed in you?

Janet: But what you begin to see is God’s constant presence with his people, you know, and so you begin to have a sense of peace over, you know, conflict that would arise in your own life that, Oh, God is, is with me right now in this situation, as he has been with me in not only You know my past, but he’s been with his people throughout centuries and generations upon generations.

And so this new kind of [00:07:00] confidence sort of begins to build in you that you can step forward. You can do what God asks you to do. You, you can have a boldness in your life. So I’ve really have found it to be quite a life changing experience and I’ve done it for more than 20 years. I have a. Group called Bible Girls and we are in our 11th year right now reading all the way through the Bible together and we’re just you know, Enamored essentially with God’s, God’s words to us because really God’s word is a love letter.

Kelly: Yeah. Yes. And that the group is on Facebook, right? Bible girls. Yes.

Janet: Yes.

Kelly: Yeah. I love the word enamored. I love that. And what you described is so true. This is what I’ve seen in my own life as well with women that I study the Bible with, is that they come to sense the presence of God. Just this week, someone said, I was in [00:08:00] a car accident, but through the whole experience, I felt God’s peace and presence.

I was never frantic, stressed out or afraid.

Janet: Yeah, you do. You really become more of a hopeful person. And I, I can only say that because there had been a cloud of depression that had hung over most of my younger adult life until I began this practice of prayer walking and reading through God’s word.

And both of those practices kind of happened about the same time.

Kelly: Yeah, that’s good. So what would you say to those who find the Bible boring or confusing or, they give up in those places where it just doesn’t make any sense at all?

Janet: Yeah, it’s challenging. And a lot of those places, I know, you read the books of Genesis and Exodus and, you know, to, and to some extent, really, they are really narratives.

They’re stories upon stories in those [00:09:00] particular books. And then you hit Leviticus, which is a long set of rules, and some of them don’t seem very pertinent today. But even in that book, there’s a purpose behind that book, and that’s to demonstrate God’s holiness. And so you begin to understand God’s goodness, His holiness, and that, you know, it helps us understand why we needed a Savior.

You know, why, why we need Jesus, why we needed him to, to go before us to be that savior for us because of God’s holiness, we needed, we needed someone who would be that intermediary for us.

Kelly: That’s a hard, that’s a hard book to get through. You know, my husband and I read through the Bible probably a dozen times.

And one of the things it did for me was it really helped me see. The sovereignty of God in every part of life is always [00:10:00] extremely encouraging to know that God’s got us in his hands, that nothing is random, nothing is taking him by surprise. That was a huge difference in my life. So I’m wondering, as you have encouraged people to read through the Bible, like your Bible girls, like if they have been reluctant and how, and what you have heard from people when they have finally read through the Bible in a year.

Janet: Well, they begin to get the kind of perspective that each day can be a treasure hunt,

you know, and so that could be a kind of a point of motivation for people as well as they’re, they’re going through maybe some of those tougher pieces like a Leviticus numbers. Maybe, you know, some of the prophets get kind of a little overwhelming cause they seem so negative in nature.

But if you can, if you look at your reading as an opportunity to find God’s treasure for you that particular day something that you’re going to kind of hang your hat on for the [00:11:00] day, because you know, somehow it’s going to, help you with whatever situations might arise. I think that kind of changes the perspective of the reader.

And I found that to be true for myself. You know, when I began reading God’s Word for the purpose of understanding more about prayer, that kind of kept my antenna up. And then, so I began thinking about, okay, so if I were going to share God’s Word to With someone else today, what would be the piece of treasure God that you would want me to show them?

And so many, many years ago, I began a practice of like looking for like that one verse that not only encouraged me, but someone else. And then I would create a meme for social media, put it there with a few encouraging words.

Kelly: Mm. I love that. The treasure hunt. What a gift. A lot of people will say , one of the things that they do is they’ll say, show me where Jesus is in this passage.

Where do I see Jesus? And that helps [00:12:00] connect them to God’s heart as well. So can you describe a time in your own life where you found comfort in the Bible? I’m just wondering if you can give us something specific.

And I’m also curious where you turn in the Bible when you’re hurting. Do you have a go to passage or a favorite place to camp out with the Lord?

Janet: Well, those maybe who know a little bit about my life know that I’m married to a cattle rancher, and we’re here in the Sierra Valley, and it was many years ago when my husband faced a a very difficult season for him and for me, really, because he was charged with a seven felony.

Animal abuse charges because a lot of the evidence was suppressed by the judge in the trial that would have proved his innocence. And this was a 2 week trial we went through. He was convicted of 6 of those felony counts and faced [00:13:00] the probability of 3 years in state prison. among other things. Two years later though, the case was overturned in appellate court.

And so we eventually won, but it was a very, very hard season. And I remember particularly right after that decision was given in court that day. My heart was racing. I had to, I couldn’t sleep. I had to go on antidepressants so that I could just function in such a way and I’d never experienced anything like that before.

And one of the other kind of weird consequences was when I turned to God’s word for that comfort that I needed, all I began to see was a piece of gray mass there. It just like nothing was sinking in, even the Psalms, which, you know, I knew that I could find comfort and strength there. So, I [00:14:00] did turn to another book on my shelf, and that was Streams in the Desert, which is a devotional book that L.

1. Cowman wrote at the beginning of the 20th century. And I found that through that devotional book, which was also a 365 day devotional book, I found exactly that kind of help that I needed. And each of her devotions was based on teachings from her former husband and from other writers, and just biblical biblical teaching every, and I underlined all the way through that, through that 365 day devotional book in a period of about a month and a half.

Normally we read one a day, right? Right. I read it in just over a month. I was that desperate for encouragement And so that was part of kind of what propelled me behind the idea of writing a 365 day Book [00:15:00] myself because I thought maybe, you know, someone who cannot kind of divide the words, figure them out, you know, at least if they read the devotion, you know, which is focused on a really important scripture each day, maybe they too would find the kind of encouragement that I got during that season.

Kelly: Wow. . That story, you shared this on the last podcast in a little bit more detail, but that time I can’t even imagine as I have gone through stressful things, I’m not able to eat. I can’t sleep. It is very difficult. And so it affects every part of you. I have talked to people who were grieving through the loss of this particular woman was through the loss of a child, and they said the same thing about the Bible. It was just a grey mass. They couldn’t focus. They couldn’t read the Bible at all. But every day God brought a daily Bible verse on their app, the youversion [00:16:00] app and that verse spoke to them very specifically and profoundly every day through the first month, the months and months following the loss of their child.

So I love that God ministered to you through that devotional. And it is, that has comforted me through times and seasons of great loss as well. The subtitle of your book is finding joy as you read and pray through the word. What is one passage or story in the Bible that has helped you walk in joy?

You’ve described a lot of this already, but I’m wondering if you could give us some more insight into how you find joy in God’s word.

Janet: Every, every book has something, you know, and even I remember when my kids were growing up, they’d always want to know who’s your favorite or what’s your favorite color, what’s your favorite food.

I kind of don’t do favorites, okay, but I, but I do find myself drawn to the book of Philippians. [00:17:00] Because, you know, Paul wrote, well, he actually wrote several letters when he was in prison. But Philippians was written out of prison and it really provides very practical kind of encouragement for those who are in difficult situations.

I, I just memorized Philippians 4 through 8. And I think it’s really a prescription for kind of overcoming a lot of those anxious or, you know, depressing kind of thoughts that we have. It really can kind of change our mindset as we meditate on those words. So I would probably say it would be Philippians.

I do. I really do love that book.

Kelly: Yeah. And what we read in that book is that joy is really, it’s really finding peace and comfort in the presence of God in our hard struggles. Right.

Janet: Exactly. Exactly.

 

Kelly: Maybe you could describe one of the parables to us and just give us some more [00:18:00] insights into those areas.

Janet: Yeah.

I love the story of the Prodigal Son. You know, because actually right now in this particular season, I have two I have two young men who, you know, profess their faith in Jesus, they walked forward in church all on their own.

No one pushed them down that aisle and they made that commitment of their faith. even before their friends had done, done this, but they’ve walked away from church practices. And so when I read the parable of the prodigal son it, it brings me hope. And I think that’s often those parables are meant to help us to understand something about eternal life.

You know, they are metaphorical in nature. We can’t say that they literally happened. The former English teacher, I love that kind of thing. I, I love that extended metaphor [00:19:00] and those kinds of stories that help us understand. And so I think Jesus went there with those kinds of stories because the people were dense.

And often his teaching was very dense. It was very didactic in nature, you know, and, and think about the Beatitudes and, and those kinds of teachings and what we, you know, how we can experience God’s love and so forth and all of that. But stories are actually what resonate with people. People will remember the story, and so we just have to allow ourselves to kind of what I do call tread water.

Tread water in a, in a, for a while. For example, I’m going to use an, I’m going to use a comparison here. So if you jumped into Lake Tahoe, you would immediately think it’s just absolutely freezing and want to jump back out because it’s typically around 50 some degrees. But if you tread water in it for a [00:20:00] while, you’ll see that’s refreshing.

You see how beautifully clear it is and you begin to enjoy it. That’s what we have to do in God’s word, whether they’re parables or other teachings, it’s just kind of rest in it for a while. I call this kind of yellow pad teaching. I’ll get it. I’ll get a yellow pad. I, when I’m writing a book and I want to examine a particular story like the, like the prodigal son I’ll just get a yellow pad.

I’m like, God, what are you showing me here? And in the prodigal son, that story itself. So this, this young man he gets his father to give him part of to give him his inheritance early. I mean, he shouldn’t. Who would even ask for that? Yeah. Some obnoxious, arrogant, you know, so he gets his inheritance, he leaves home because of course leaving home is always going to make your life better, right?

And and he, he’s Spends it and he just, he wastes it away in luxurious [00:21:00] and reckless kind of living. And he finds himself in a situation where he doesn’t have a place. He doesn’t have shelter, he doesn’t have food, and he’s even wishing that he could have food in the way the pigs are eating out of the trough.

So he finally goes home. And he goes home to his father’s open, warm embrace. And that’s such a beautiful picture of those of us, whether we’ve been in that position, here, here come the tears, whether we’ve been in that position of running away ourselves and need to know that God will welcome us back. Or if we have children

who,

who have kind of walked away from the faith for one reason or another, we simply have to, and I’m praying for my sons as I’m doing that, I’m praying for others.

And I don’t even know all the names, but I can know that God will welcome them back and that their walk will be even [00:22:00] stronger, you know, because of the experience that they’ve been, they see contrasts, you know, in terms of hopeless living and hope filled living. There’s the, there’s the little sidebar of the other brother at the end of that parable, who’s resentful that the father will kill the fatted calf for the, for the son who’s come home when he’s been the faithful one, he’s done all the work.

He didn’t ask for his inheritance ahead of time, you know, and there will be those kinds of people who are, who are naysayers about the faith who resent the fact that, you know, someone Someone may be more new to the faith and maybe they, for example, jump right into leadership in our church and maybe we feel overlooked.

But you know, God knows the purpose that each of us has, in his kingdom sake. And it’s just also, it’s a secondary teaching about us, you [00:23:00] know, just being willing to kind of step into the calling that God has for our lives and just live that out joyfully and thankfully.

Kelly: Yeah.

Janet: And to welcome those new people in, you know, mentor, mentor them and take care of them and teach them.

Kelly: Hmm. That’s so beautiful and so much hope. Thank you, God. We have a good father who welcomes us home. He’s not standing there with his arms crossed, rolling his eyes, tapping his foot, waiting for us to get our act together. Yeah. I know that that story encouraged many of our listeners who have prodigals, and it just seems like we, we all know so many who are just trying to figure out how this God of the Bible is really relevant to them.

And so thank you for being vulnerable and sharing those stories. I will certainly be praying for your family as well janet,

Can you tell our listeners how they can get in touch with you, my friend?

Janet: My website is JanetMcHenry. com and I [00:24:00] love to hear from folks there. There is a contact link where they can, contact me directly. And there’s also kind of a little opportunity for them to get a free ebook called Prayer Helps Scripture based prayers when you don’t know how to pray and they get that by signing up for my monthly mini magazine called Looking Up and I just send out one thing a month and try to make it fun like a women’s magazine with recipes and maybe places to visit and other kind of tips on decorating and stuff like that, but also there’s a good word and it’s typically centered around the idea of prayer.

Kelly: Yes,, it’s worth it. My friends, your heart will be encouraged by her fresh insights into God’s word. And maybe you would like to start off your new year reading through the Bible with Janet’s new Devo. Maybe you’d like to do it with a friend. The book is called Looking Up. [00:25:00] Finding joy as you pray and read through the Bible. Thank you so much, Janet, for being here. I thank you for all you do for the kingdom,

Janet: thank you, Kelly. I appreciate you.

If you were encouraged in your faith today, it’d be great if you’d help get the word out by subscribing, sharing with a friend or leaving a review. I’d love to hear from you. You can reach out through my website, kellyhall. org and pick up some free resources while you’re there. Thanks for listening to the Unshakable Hope Podcast.