Love Like This: Poured Out
If you're anything like me, you probably find yourself completely overwhelmed by the Bible.
Every aspect of it is important. Every verse, every word, was inspired by the God of the universe.
Where do you even begin?
I would have to say this has probably been my biggest struggle when it comes to having a consistent devotional time.
I want to know all the things—yesterday. And if I can’t learn all the things right now, why bother learning them at all?
Sometimes I think we have this idea that spirituality is a sort of “get rich quick” concept. If we put a couple verses in our head or go to church enough, we just somehow become spiritual.
But that isn’t really how ANY relationships work now, is it?
No one builds a meaningful relationship by squeezing a rushed conversation into the last two minutes of their day just to say they did it.
And if we’re honest, nobody enjoys spending time with someone who clearly can’t wait to leave.
For a long time, that’s how my time with God often felt.
Not because I didn’t care.
But because I was trying to do it right.
Was I reading the right passage?
Was I always getting something out of it?
Was I having some profound spiritual insight that would change my life trajectory?
Eventually I realized that all of that pressure was actually getting in the way.
So I stopped thinking about it so hard.
I picked a reading plan I liked and simply committed to showing up every day.
That was it.
No pressure to finish a certain number of chapters.
No expectation that every reading would feel life-changing.
No need for some dramatic revelation.
No forcing myself to push through a rigid “read the whole Bible in a year” timeline just to say I did it.
I just paused. And read.
Sometimes I still don’t finish the reading for that day because a thought or question pops up that I want to sit with a little longer. Sometimes a single idea will linger in my mind for the rest of the day.
And surprisingly, that’s when things started standing out to me that I had never noticed before.
Not necessarily things that fixed my situation or solved whatever problem I was dealing with in the moment.
But things that showed me who God actually is.
Because THIS—I’ve come to realize—is the real point of Scripture.
Not “How is this going to fix my life today?”
But “What does this show me about God?”
And once that became the question, everything started to look different.
Not just the stories I already knew how to love, but the parts of Scripture I usually skimmed past. Books like Leviticus and Deuteronomy.
At first glance they are full of instructions—offerings, sacrifices, feasts, detailed descriptions of how the tabernacle should be built, what the priests should wear, exactly how things were supposed to be done. Long instructions. Repetition. Technicalities.
But when I slowed down enough to actually read it, I started seeing something else entirely.
Mercy. Order. Lovingkindness.
The seriousness of sin, yes—but also God’s provision for dealing with it. Again and again, He provided a way back. Every offering, every instruction, every detail pointed to something about His character.
His expectations.
His righteousness.
His patience.
His desire to dwell among His people—
even though He knew exactly who they were.
And the more I sat with those realizations, I began to notice that the things I had been writing about in these posts were actually starting to take root in my life.
The patience. The slowing down. The ability to step back and see situations differently.
Not because I suddenly figured everything out. And certainly not because I’ve arrived. I still struggle every single day to live out the things I’m learning.
But for the first time in my life, I can actually see God changing me.
And the surprising part is this:
I didn’t do anything extraordinary.
I just showed up.
Paused.
Opened the Bible.
And asked one simple question:
“What will you teach me about Yourself?”
And the more clearly I begin to see Him, the more His love is beginning to shape the way I live—hopefully until the love my family receives from me isn’t just something I’m trying to manufacture, but something that naturally flows through me.
God’s love received becomes love poured out.
Love. Like this.
