Blogging Bible Study: Philippians Final Thoughts

Well, here's the study all linked up:
Feb. 5 Intro
Feb. 12 Lesson 1 Phil. 1:1 - 11 Affectionate Greetings
Feb. 19 Lesson 2 Phil. 1:12 - 29 Testimony in a Time of Suffering
Feb. 26 Lesson 3 Phil. 2:1 - 16 Exhortation to Humility
March 5 Lesson 4 Phil. 2:17 - 30 Commendations of Coworkers
March 12 Lesson 5 Phil. 3: 1 - 16 Warnings Regarding Legalism
March 19 20 Lesson 6 Phil. 3:17 - 4:7 Instruction on Living as Citizens of Heaven
March 26 Lesson 7 Phil. 4:8 - 23 Gratitude for Concerned Support

I have to say, now that we're through it, that that was one of the most difficult studies I've done to date. Not necessarily from the study itself, but from life. Many days I didn't get a chance to sit down and work on it until late at night, and I would be typing the post as I fought to keep my eyes open. When I managed to sit down and type at a decent hour, I found myself fighting a headache...cause unknown.

I had to work to get that study up.

Generally speaking, having to battle to do something usually means one of two things:
1) I'm out of God's timing/working on my own strength or
2) I'm doing what I should be doing, and the Enemy is fighting it.

Trouble is, I can't always tell the difference.

What did I learn from the study?

I learned not to take anything for granted. Philippians is a short little book and I love it, so I thought it would be an easy study to do to kind of ease back into posting Bible studies. It wasn't. I'm not sure I really did justice to the book, because I was fighting such a battle to get the studies posted. The spark of insight that I found as I did the studies that I posted earlier (they're on the sidebar) seemed to me to be conspicuously absent from this one. Yes, we covered the material and yes, we did discuss some important points, but...it just didn't seem to come up to the earlier studies.

So where does that leave me with the concept of posting Bible studies? I'm not sure; maybe posting a study just because I'm missing teaching a Bible study isn't a good enough reason to do one; maybe I should wait until God puts a burden on me.

Or, maybe I need to just fight the battle and not let the Enemy discourage me.

Obviously, I need to do some prayin' and some listenin' before I even figure out what the issue was here...then I'll be able to see where to go next.

Anyway, for those of you who hung with me and read the posts...thank you! I pray the Holy Spirit used something there to minister to you, independently of anything I wrote. God's good like that. ;)