A Practical Walk

I’ve never done a “word of the year” until last year. “Saturate”, specifically having to do with saturating myself in Scripture, laid heavy on my heart.

So how did that saturation of the Word of God go last year? While I didn’t keep exact records of what all I read, I do feel like in 2025 I was exposed to a lot more Scripture and teaching on Scripture than the previous few years.

You know how you sometimes don’t realize how much you’re missing something until you have it? That’s how I felt about Scripture and fellowship with other growing believers while in West Africa, particularly the last few years there.

To set the scene a little….the organization we worked with focuses on people who don’t already have much, if any, Biblical exposure. That means often we’re far from where there’s already a church full of people. Us, as a family were living in a small town/village. The nearest churches, had some very different doctrine, so we struggled with knowing how much to be involved and in what ways. During that time, the church we had been attending stopped having services due to Covid. After that we started attending a smaller church, but it was further away (about a 2 hour drive). We found this church group to be more aligned with our thinking and were encouraged by many of the sermons we heard there. The sermons were usually taught in one language and translated into another, depending on who all was there, so usually we could understand one of the languages. However, with the church being as far as it was, we didn’t go out weekly.

Despite hearing these great sermons, they were not in our heart language.

On top of that we didn’t see our co-workers much, as they all lived far away. When a family moved just half an hour away we started having occasional prayer meetings together, which was great!

We also started having family Bible study, as we saw how little Bible teaching our kids were getting, and even when they were it was in their second language.

Then there’s personal Bible study, which I sometimes found myself getting busy, or tired and neglecting this.

All of that to say, I didn’t realize how dry, and quite unsaturated my spiritual life could get. Taking time to be in God’s Word had to be very intentional.

Being back in the States, now I’m hearing teaching multiple times a week: Sunday school, Sunday morning, sometimes Sunday night, Monday night ladies’ Bible study, and Wednesday night. Plus family Bible study together. We had been doing it about 4 times a week, until our evenings started filling up more with kids’ activities.

On top of that, right now the ladies’ Bible study is following the Bible Recap, which has us reading multiple chapters of the Bible a day, so just in this study alone, I’ve been reading quite a bit.

I’m thankful for all these exposures to God’s Word. It takes hearing it repeatedly for it to sink in (or move up my iceberg).

While another theme has been on my mind for 2026, I in no way want to end the saturation theme, but rather continue with it, while adding on my new theme…but more on that one later.

Our saturated front yard in African rainy season.

Did you have a word, theme, or focus for 2025?