Welcome! A little about my “process” of developing my Bible devotionals on my podcasts….

The process that I’m using is based on Psalms 1: 

1 Blessed is the one
    who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
    or sit in the company of mockers,

2 but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
    and who meditates on his law day and night.

3 That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
    which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
    whatever they do prospers.

4 Not so the wicked!
    They are like chaff
    that the wind blows away.

5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
    nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

6 For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
    but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.

The word “meditate” in verse 2 has connotations of muttering aloud or talking to oneself about something. My entire life I’ve used that process to figure things  out as I like to verbally walk my way through a problem. I will literally talk to myself, weighing options and possibilities. My wife informs me that this is fun to watch… 

In 2020, I was diagnosed with congestive heart failure On the heels of this diagnosis came the Corona virus pandemic. From 2020 to late 2022 I isolated at home out of an abundance of caution because I didn’t want that virus to interact with my heart condition. With all of this new-found time on my hands, I started reading the Bible in a devotional manner, recording my thoughts on video and audio, posting these daily interactions with the Bible as podcasts. I did all of this for no one but myself. 

By committing to these podcasts I created a means to be accountable to myself. I had a reason to wake up, get my coffee and sit down at the computer early each morning. I would read a chapter or a passage of Scripture and just freely discuss that passage… with myself. I called that process “thinking with my mouth open!” This process has turned out to be one of the most valuable forms of Bible study I have experienced – getting the Bible into me in a way that I have never experienced before. 

When I started in April of 2020, the podcast was primarily a vehicle for me to learn the technology, requiring some new equipment and my learning a new set of technologies and software. As I progressed, I would find myself waking up early – sometimes at 4:30 or 5:00 am – thinking about the what I was going to read that day. I found myself asking God – 

“What do You have for me today?”

Before long, I found myself reading the passage the night before, doing some basic research using the NIV Study Bible from Zondervan. and going to sleep thinking about what I read. I write my thoughts down, and the next morning I  wake up and record my musings and thoughts for that days podcast.

And the rest is… as they say… history. 

Podcast links

 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCZFpMdPFhF_RtUL3uSGfhYcWHMDyvUQy

You can also find my audio only version on Spotify

https://open.spotify.com/show/5Tmyp8Erihtr0X3AAUNJsX

You can also search for “Coffee, the Bible, and Paige!” on Apple.

         ©Paige C. Garwood M.Ed; MFA