This is Nadia.
While in college, she met with a couple friends to study the Bible. Growing up, she was familiar with a distant, angry God. Studying with her friends, she met a personal God who wanted to know her more. She thrust herself into a relationship with God for the first time in her life, and she devoured the Word. After 35 years, however, her learning had plateaued. She would read the Word starting with her personal assumptions and, to a certain extent, sought to protect those assumptions.
In February 2019, Nadia’s friend Jaci told her about the BEMA Podcast. She started listening and was immediately hooked. Nadia’s intense desire to learn about Scripture was rekindled. She felt like the Bereans in the book of Acts who accepted Paul’s message with great eagerness and examined the scriptures daily to see if what he was saying was true.
Nadia would ask herself, “How could it be?” Some of these scriptures she had read a hundred times, so how could she have missed so much? Though she was surprised to see these deeper meanings, she leaned in to find more. “I’ve learned so much in the past year. My personal walk with God has changed radically.”
When Nadia reads a passage, she now tries to understand the context, the references, and the audience. Then she considers how to apply it to her life and ministry.
The one thing Nadia has seen change the most is her understanding of the value of Sabbath. She always saw Sabbath as something oppressive, and didn’t see a place for it in Christianity. She now realizes that Sabbath is truly a gift. Sabbath is an opportunity to stop everything and stand still before the Lord. It is a humbling and necessary reminder of her dependence on God.
Nadia and her husband, Jo, have been trying to practice the Sabbath (their day is Tuesday). They try (and struggle) to intentionally stop everything and be still before God. The hardest thing is shutting down their phones. They start feeling anxious about all the calls they will miss, all the people they need to talk to, all the deals that may fall through, and all the people that need their help. When she is honest with herself, Nadia sees she desperately needs to keep the Sabbath. She needs to make space to hear the Lord and see His face, revel in His presence, and completely depend on Him for her very existence.
BEMA has been a tool to learn how to wield God’s Word and better understand what God is saying. Akin to a pry bar opening a crate, she now pries back the layers of God’s Word.
