Latest / She Speaks Life - Christian Women, Strengthen Your Faith, Bible Study, Grow Spiritually In Christ / From Atheist to Bible Teacher: The Simple Scripture Study Method That Transforms With Mariel Davenport

Transcript

From Atheist to Bible Teacher: The Simple Scripture Study Method That Transforms With Mariel Davenport · She Speaks Life - Christian Women, Strengthen Your Faith, Bible Study, Grow Spiritually In Christ

• 0:00
  Hey there, welcome back to She Speaks Like podcast.
• 0:03
  In today's episode, I am joined by author and Bible teacher
• 0:07
  Marielle Davenport for a deeply encouraging conversation about
• 0:12
  slowing down in scripture and truly hearing the voice of God
• 0:16
  through his word. Marielle publishes devotions
• 0:20
  with Our Daily Bread publishers and has a podcast called Tend
• 0:24
  Your Soul where she implements her Tend method, which we dive
• 0:30
  into more. In this episode, Marielle shares
• 0:34
  her incredible testimony of going from atheism to
• 0:38
  passionately pursuing Jesus after simply opening the Bible
• 0:42
  for the first time, What started as an attempt to disprove
• 0:46
  Christianity became a life changing encounter with the
• 0:51
  living God. Now, after years of teaching
• 0:54
  women how to study scripture, she's created the Tend method.
• 0:59
  It's a simple yet powerful approach to engaging with God's
• 1:03
  Word in a way that brings clarity, revelation, and
• 1:07
  transformation. So together we talk about why so
• 1:11
  many women feel overwhelmed when studying the Bible, how the Holy
• 1:15
  Spirit helps us understand Scripture personally, and the
• 1:18
  power of slowing down and tending our souls through God's
• 1:23
  Word. This conversation is filled with
• 1:26
  wisdom, practical encouragement, and beautiful for reminders that
• 1:31
  God's Word is alive, active, and accessible to every believer.
• 1:36
  If you've ever struggled to stay consistent in Bible study or
• 1:40
  desired A deeper relationship with God through Scripture, this
• 1:44
  episode will equip you and inspire you.
• 1:48
  So if you're ready, I'm ready. Here's my guest, Mariel
• 1:52
  Davenport. Hi, Mariel, welcome to She
• 1:55
  Speaks Live. I am looking forward to our
• 1:57
  conversation today. Hey Jamie, this is so great.
• 2:00
  I love this. I love your podcast, so I'm
• 2:02
  excited to have this conversation.
• 2:04
  Thank you. Yes, so we are going to be
• 2:07
  talking about your tend method that you had created and and put
• 2:13
  together to encourage women to just another way of studying
• 2:18
  scripture. So I'm really interested in
• 2:20
  hearing about this. But before we dive into that
• 2:25
  discovery, I always love to ask the guests what is a script
• 2:29
  verse that they are currently resonating with and why?
• 2:33
  I love this question because I think you can learn so much
• 2:36
  about somebody about how God is speaking to them in the moment.
• 2:40
  You know, so really what wherever I am in Scripture at
• 2:44
  that time is my favorite. But for me right now in my
• 2:50
  online Bible study community, we are attending through first
• 2:53
  Peter this month because my new Bible study first Peter
• 2:57
  sustained by living Hope just released.
• 2:59
  And so so for me, one verse that I just keep coming back to you
• 3:04
  as an anchor from this book of Scripture is first Peter 57.
• 3:10
  It says cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
• 3:13
  And that's probably a really familiar verse to most of your
• 3:17
  listeners. But I feel like and it's
• 3:19
  something I've always known as long as I've been in Scripture.
• 3:22
  But the idea of how Peter starts with humility right before that
• 3:27
  verse and a call to just humble yourselves before God, then cast
• 3:32
  your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
• 3:35
  And then he says and then be so reminded and watchful.
• 3:39
  And I'm just, I love that. I feel like I just need that
• 3:42
  reminder because I am carrying so many things as I'm sure your
• 3:46
  listeners are too. I mean, we just women carry the
• 3:49
  emotional weight of our children, of our spouses, of our
• 3:53
  friends, you know, and I feel like especially with the state
• 3:57
  of the world and the culture, I mean, we need this reminder from
• 4:01
  Peter, from God through Peter that is inviting us not to
• 4:05
  perform for God, but to bring our burdens to him and then be
• 4:10
  watchful to see how he might move and respond to that.
• 4:14
  So I just, I, I'm constantly coming back to that verse in the
• 4:19
  last few weeks and just tethering my heart to it.
• 4:22
  I am in an empty nest season. My oldest and his sweet wife
• 4:26
  just purchased their first house and and then my baby just
• 4:31
  launched, moved out into his own apartment after graduating
• 4:35
  college. And so just with all of that,
• 4:38
  plus, you know, a growing ministry and public publishing
• 4:42
  deadlines and things like that, it's just I constantly need to
• 4:45
  come back to just casting all my anxieties, everything that's on
• 4:49
  my heart, everything that's on my soul that's distracting me,
• 4:52
  casting it back on the Lord. And so, yeah.
• 4:55
  And lately in my community, being able to do it alongside
• 4:59
  other women has just been so life giving.
• 5:03
  So yeah, that's that's really the the verse that's blinking in
• 5:06
  my soul right now. Yeah, I love that verse.
• 5:10
  I didn't whole episode on that verse because I don't know about
• 5:14
  you, but I'd see the first part of care cast all your cares onto
• 5:19
  the Lord and then because he cares for you.
• 5:21
  So then I'm like, why is there two cares with two different
• 5:24
  meanings? So most people know that listen
• 5:28
  to my solo episodes know I'm kind of a a Greek geek where I
• 5:32
  like to go in and like get into the Greek and Hebrew meaning of
• 5:37
  the word. And so it did give two different
• 5:40
  meanings meanings. So you know, the first care is
• 5:43
  obviously your anxiety, your worries, your concerns, and then
• 5:46
  the second care is that nurturing and that shepherd like
• 5:51
  I'll take care of you, I'll rescue you.
• 5:53
  So, and I also, while I was doing this whole dive in this
• 6:00
  verse, I also got an image from the Lord of if you take a, a
• 6:06
  Pebble and you know how you skip rocks into a lake, Well, you
• 6:11
  take that rock and you look at it.
• 6:13
  Well, that's the thing that you're concerned with.
• 6:15
  That's the, the worry or, you know, the anxiety that you're
• 6:20
  dealing with. And then if you just cast it
• 6:23
  like you're skipping a rock into the lake, well, that gives you
• 6:27
  that image of, Hey, like, I'm not going to go back out there
• 6:31
  and try to find that same rock and pick it up and bring it back
• 6:34
  to shore. No, So when we're casting, it's
• 6:38
  like done, you threw it, you know, at the Lords feet and
• 6:42
  you're not going to pick it up. But so often we still have this
• 6:47
  image of, oh, I still see it at the Lords feet and I could go
• 6:50
  back and pick it up and you know, so I just got this image
• 6:54
  of how can I get it to where I don't see it anymore where, you
• 7:00
  know, and then the Lord just gave me this image of skipping
• 7:03
  rocks and I'm like, wow, Lord, you're so good.
• 7:05
  I could just throw it there and it's it's done.
• 7:09
  It's disappeared. I can't see it anymore.
• 7:11
  So I. Love that.
• 7:12
  I love that Jamie. That is going to stick with me,
• 7:14
  girl, because I'm needing that image right now in this season.
• 7:18
  I know I always share it because I know it went straight from the
• 7:22
  Holy Spirit, so I know most women can really relate to that.
• 7:27
  OK, so let's talk about your back story.
• 7:32
  You haven't always followed Jesus and and so can you Share
• 7:36
  your story of going from atheist to beginning to to becoming a
• 7:41
  Bible teacher and what changed when you first encountered
• 7:46
  scripture? Yeah, Yeah.
• 7:48
  Well, so in my early 20s, you know, I had grown up in a home
• 7:53
  that was just a, a broken home. We did not go to church.
• 7:57
  My parents were not believers. And so by the time I was in my
• 8:00
  early 20s, I was an atheist. I wanted nothing to do with God.
• 8:04
  And I married right out of college.
• 8:07
  Really looking back, because I was looking for a savior, I
• 8:12
  needed somebody to be my stability.
• 8:14
  And you know, husbands are a gift, but they are not saviors.
• 8:20
  And so, you know, we were not married long before we got
• 8:24
  pregnant and thought this is going to be my savior, a baby.
• 8:27
  That's exactly what I need. And and babies are a gift from
• 8:31
  the Lord, but definitely also not saviors.
• 8:34
  And so at the time I was working at a preschool and a coworker
• 8:39
  put a Bible in my hands and just challenged me to read it.
• 8:43
  And I thought, well, I'm going to read it, but I'm going to
• 8:46
  read it to disprove her and everybody else that's telling me
• 8:50
  I should take this baby to church.
• 8:52
  We should, you know, believe in God.
• 8:54
  And so I thought, well, I'm just going to read it and disprove
• 8:57
  everybody. And I just, I, I always think, I
• 9:00
  wonder, I would love to see God's face.
• 9:03
  You know, when I was saying that, because I mean, he just
• 9:06
  opened my eyes in an incredible way as I read that Bible.
• 9:11
  I started in Genesis because it's the beginning.
• 9:14
  And so I just thought that's how you read a book.
• 9:16
  I didn't know anything else different.
• 9:20
  And I had never heard of Noah and Moses and Abraham.
• 9:25
  I mean, I had never been to church, didn't know anything
• 9:27
  about these ancient people who you know what they were
• 9:31
  dysfunctional and messed up. And yet God pursued them and
• 9:35
  redeemed them and love them. And so I, by the time I got to
• 9:41
  the end of the book of Genesis, I, and I think it's chapter 50,
• 9:46
  they're looking into Joseph's coffin when they're going to
• 9:49
  take his bones back to the promised land.
• 9:51
  And I feel like at that point I was really faced with what's
• 9:56
  going to happen to me when I die.
• 9:58
  And so I went back to my friend who had lent me the Bible and
• 10:03
  told her I, I do believe this God is real.
• 10:06
  What do I need to do? How do how can I know him?
• 10:09
  And she shared with me that I'm a Sinner, which did not surprise
• 10:14
  me. And and I surrendered my life to
• 10:16
  the Lord. Yeah.
• 10:18
  It doesn't take much for us to realize that, you know, and so I
• 10:23
  surrendered my life to Christ at that point and I just, I dove 2
• 10:28
  feet into Bible study because it was so brand new to me.
• 10:31
  I was so green to it all that it was just profound.
• 10:35
  Every Bible study I could find. I mean, every, you name any
• 10:40
  Bible study from the early 2000s and I have done it, I'm sure.
• 10:44
  And so I, I just started going to, you know, 3 or 4 Bible
• 10:48
  studies. I got so involved.
• 10:50
  I ended up being a precepts trained through precepts trained
• 10:54
  through community Bible study, just hungry for the word.
• 10:58
  And only three years into Bible studies that I was doing, a
• 11:04
  pastor came to me and said he saw a a gift of teaching in me
• 11:08
  and wanted to see if I would facilitate a women's Bible
• 11:11
  study. And, you know, God bless the
• 11:14
  pastors that see something in us that we're like, not real sure
• 11:18
  about. And only three years from being
• 11:21
  an atheist. I didn't know much about
• 11:23
  Scripture, but I mean, I could turn on a VCR at the time, you
• 11:26
  know, so. So yeah, that's what I did.
• 11:31
  I LED Bible studies. I just got so immersed in it and
• 11:37
  it was probably 5 or 6 years into that that I realized I'm
• 11:42
  feeling like I'm not hearing God for myself anymore.
• 11:46
  I'm really dependent on these fill in the blank Bible studies.
• 11:50
  And so that's when I started studying how teachers study and
• 11:56
  how they take in scripture and so through that learn the
• 12:00
  inductive study method and things like that.
• 12:02
  And was at that point also growing a little salsa garden in
• 12:07
  my backyard with my 2 little boys.
• 12:09
  And, and so God was really teaching me through that, how he
• 12:13
  was tending my soul the way I was tending this garden, and
• 12:16
  that he uses his word as a seed in our soul to just tend to us
• 12:22
  and heal us and grow us and cultivate intimacy with him
• 12:25
  through that. And so, so through that, then I
• 12:29
  put together the tend method as I was teaching these women how,
• 12:33
  you know, going from this big inductive idea of Bible study
• 12:37
  down to something that is doable in, in just a simple, effective
• 12:42
  way to study Scripture. And that's what I was using.
• 12:45
  And I've been using that for 20 years, taught my son's how to do
• 12:48
  it. They still do it now as grown
• 12:50
  men, and I've taught women, thousands of women over the
• 12:53
  years to just study that way. And it's really incredible how
• 12:59
  God will speak through His Word when we slow down to just hear
• 13:02
  Him. Absolutely.
• 13:04
  Wow. Well, thank you yeah for sharing
• 13:07
  your back story. That's that's amazing how just
• 13:12
  quickly the word of God spoke to you to transform you and to
• 13:18
  become saved. And for one thing I caught was
• 13:21
  that you were actually concerned about where you were going
• 13:26
  afterwards, you know, after this life.
• 13:28
  And I had had dinner recently with another couple, my husband
• 13:34
  and I, and they were a client of my husband.
• 13:38
  So it was like a business dinner.
• 13:40
  And they claimed they were atheists, you know, because we
• 13:42
  were blessing the food and went into praying over the food.
• 13:46
  And we had to ask them some questions because we are, you
• 13:51
  know, curious. And one of them just grew up
• 13:54
  their whole family as atheists. And so that's what who they are.
• 14:00
  And the other one, the husband had just said, we don't think
• 14:05
  about what happens after we die. And so he looked at his wife and
• 14:10
  he goes, do you think about it? And she's like, no.
• 14:13
  And I thought, you know what? This is the seed.
• 14:18
  This is the main purpose why we're having this business
• 14:21
  dinner, you know, business aside.
• 14:23
  But this is like the seed that we were able to plant to start
• 14:28
  just that curiosity. And so when you were, you're
• 14:32
  like, oh, like there is a place there is a heaven and a hell.
• 14:37
  And so I want to go to heaven that I want to have eternal
• 14:40
  life. So I was just re.
• 14:43
  I was just thinking about that dinner that we had with this
• 14:47
  couple and thinking, OK, that was the seed that at least now
• 14:52
  they're considering, you know, what's going to happen to us
• 14:56
  afterwards. Because you think like, Oh yeah,
• 14:59
  everyone thinks about that, like, but not everyone does, you
• 15:03
  know? So they just think this is it.
• 15:05
  This is life and that's it, you know?
• 15:07
  So I love that God sparked that prompting in you to actually
• 15:14
  want to seek out and know exactly where you're going after
• 15:18
  this life. And we kind of have a similar
• 15:21
  story. Not that I was an atheist, but I
• 15:25
  became a Christian very young girl, five years old and then
• 15:28
  never cultivated that fellowship with the Lord had that personal
• 15:33
  relationship just kind of rode on the coattails, the faith
• 15:37
  coattails of my parents. And so me diving into Bible
• 15:42
  studies, just like you said, doing every Bible study
• 15:45
  possible, but it really does grow you and and in getting into
• 15:51
  the word, obviously and nourishes you and matures you,
• 15:54
  but you become more like Christ. And so I can relate just
• 15:58
  absorbing yourself and just wanting more of who God is and
• 16:04
  this character and who am I, you know, my identity and him and
• 16:09
  Christ. So I love that story.
• 16:12
  I could I could totally relate. OK, so let's dive into that tend
• 16:17
  method. I'm so curious and so so how did
• 16:22
  this come about and what problem were you seeing that led you to
• 16:26
  create it like you, you saw like maybe there was something
• 16:30
  lacking and you're like, hey, I'm going to make something a
• 16:33
  little more simpler or a better method and studying scripture.
• 16:38
  Yeah. You know, as I was teaching
• 16:40
  women, I realized they they didn't lack want and desire of
• 16:47
  knowing God, but they felt that Scripture was so overwhelming
• 16:51
  often times, like where do I read in scripture and how do I
• 16:55
  do it? And it seems so lofty, you know,
• 16:57
  for a lot of people. And so it was that overwhelm
• 17:02
  that I saw from the women I was serving that I thought, how can
• 17:08
  I give them a simple way to just slow down and get into the Word?
• 17:16
  And what I was doing is basically what I taught them to
• 17:20
  do. Because I had come away from
• 17:22
  those fill in the blank Bible studies and was feeling like
• 17:26
  God's voice had started to sound like all of these Bible teachers
• 17:31
  in my soul. And I wanted to hear God for
• 17:35
  myself again. I mean, having come to faith
• 17:39
  through just reading scripture, I knew the Holy Spirit can speak
• 17:42
  to me through His Word and so I didn't need those other Bible
• 17:48
  teachers. It is a gift and a blessing to
• 17:50
  have teachers and pastors that impart the Word to us 1000%.
• 17:54
  I would say they are total gift, but it is also so paramount for
• 18:00
  us as believers in Christ to be able to get into the Word of God
• 18:04
  for ourselves and hear Him through His Word by His Spirit.
• 18:10
  And so that's what caused me to want to do something that was
• 18:15
  kind of repeatable. It's just four simple steps that
• 18:19
  you can use through anywhere in Scripture, but you do have to be
• 18:24
  conscientious of context. Like I never just pick and
• 18:28
  choose, you know, a verse here and there.
• 18:30
  I go through a book of the Bible and right now going through
• 18:34
  first Peter like we will do first Peter 11 and then 1-2 and
• 18:38
  then 1/3 and so and then we use this tend method to do that.
• 18:43
  So tend is it's just an acronym T is take time to pray.
• 18:48
  Whenever we get into God's word, we want to start in prayer and
• 18:52
  just reorienting our heart and mind to recognize that we are
• 18:56
  hearing from the God of the universe and bringing ourselves
• 19:00
  to him in a way that just slows our thinking for a second.
• 19:04
  You know, not just plowing through the way we do approach
• 19:07
  our phones or something with the scrolling, but slowing down to
• 19:11
  just ask God's would you speak to me through your word?
• 19:14
  Would you reveal yourself to me? And then E is examine the
• 19:18
  Scripture and that's where I write down from my like copy
• 19:24
  from my Bible onto my journal the verses that I'm tending
• 19:28
  through that day. So it's only about 3 to 5 verses
• 19:32
  a day. And I just copy them exactly as
• 19:35
  they're written in the text. And in doing that, if if your
• 19:39
  listeners have never done that, that is just life changing.
• 19:44
  I mean, to write down God's word, to copy that down.
• 19:48
  It slows you down to be able to really see what's, you know, the
• 19:52
  words they are the tenses and the verbs and and repeated
• 19:57
  words. And like you said, the care and
• 19:59
  care in first Peter 57, the two different care to be able to
• 20:03
  look that up because wow, wait, it says that two times there,
• 20:06
  you know, so just that kind of thing.
• 20:09
  When we examine the scripture and write it down, it just, it
• 20:13
  really highlights it in a way that's different than just
• 20:17
  reading a chapter a day or, you know, just plowing through,
• 20:20
  highlighting something and moving on.
• 20:23
  And then N is notice the lesson and that's where we want to look
• 20:27
  at those verses and ask what is this teaching about God?
• 20:30
  First of all, because Scripture is primarily God revealing
• 20:34
  himself to us. And So what is this teaching
• 20:37
  about God? And then and then is there a
• 20:41
  promise or an action, a command, an example in the these verses I
• 20:45
  just wrote and thinking about it from the eyes of the people that
• 20:50
  are receiving that initial scripture, it from the person,
• 20:56
  you know, like having context there.
• 20:58
  And that's why it's so important to kind of as we're going
• 21:01
  through first Peter, we've already reminded ourselves who
• 21:05
  Peter is, you know, where he was at this time, who he's writing
• 21:09
  to. That makes such a difference in
• 21:12
  how we're going to interpret it. And so notice the lesson is
• 21:16
  really just interpreting that in how was it originally intended?
• 21:21
  And so we write down the lesson. It's and it's usually like a
• 21:24
  lesson or two, you know, like whatever is standing out that is
• 21:29
  truth in those verses. And then D is do what it says.
• 21:34
  And so that's when we respond to what the lesson is.
• 21:37
  We want to act different, respond different, whether it's
• 21:42
  that I should pray for somebody that the Lord brought to mind or
• 21:44
  praise God or lists gratitudes or take a meal to somebody that
• 21:49
  he put on my heart about this. This verse is about hospitality.
• 21:53
  How can I have hospitality without grumbling, as it says in
• 21:56
  first Peter, which is another verse that's been standing out
• 21:59
  for me. And so just that kind of, you
• 22:01
  know, like, how can I live this owl and live in response to what
• 22:06
  God's Word says? And so, and it's just, it's
• 22:09
  little by little. I mean, it is like a garden.
• 22:14
  The more I spend these years tending my soul with Scripture,
• 22:18
  the more I see the parallels with the garden because I've got
• 22:21
  tomatoes growing right now that are getting huge, but they are
• 22:24
  still green. No, no tomato is turning red in
• 22:27
  my garden. And I'm like, come on.
• 22:30
  And we want to hurry up our own spiritual growth too.
• 22:33
  You know, we want to be like, come on, I got to pull this
• 22:36
  together. Stop being anxious or stop
• 22:38
  being, you know, gossiping or whatever.
• 22:41
  The thing is instead, God saying little by little, like today,
• 22:46
  what is one thing we can do different?
• 22:48
  What is one thing that we can do in response to His word by the
• 22:51
  power of His Spirit in US? And I mean, it is amazing when
• 22:55
  you look back over years of tending your soul through
• 22:58
  Scripture, what fruit has been born in you that glorifies the
• 23:03
  Father in heaven? It's just, it's amazing.
• 23:06
  And it's only God who can do it. Yes, yes, it's only him working
• 23:10
  in and through US and it you know, the seed is is God's word
• 23:16
  and there's time for that growing and then you know, the
• 23:19
  harvest is that fruit. And so, you know, it just, it
• 23:24
  doesn't happen overnight. And we're always, it says we're
• 23:28
  always going to be growing as long as we're on this earth,
• 23:32
  we're going to be growing to be more and more like him.
• 23:36
  And we're never going to reach like this, you know, oh, we're,
• 23:41
  we're done growing and we're all mature and we're done.
• 23:45
  You know, so I love how the Lord just worked that out to where,
• 23:50
  you know, we're complete because his word is just so, so it's
• 23:55
  alive and active and it's never ending.
• 23:58
  It's eternal. So there's always more of him to
• 24:01
  find out and to learn and discover.
• 24:05
  And that's what I just love about the Scripture.
• 24:08
  So many layers to it, right? Yeah.
• 24:10
  And you can, you know, you can do go through an entire book of
• 24:14
  the Bible and two years later come back to that book and be
• 24:16
  like, wait a second, where was this two years ago?
• 24:19
  You know, it's like, I never saw this first before or this is
• 24:22
  never true that to me. And so, yeah, I, I totally
• 24:25
  agree. I mean, it's such a grace of God
• 24:27
  that He gives us His Word and it is just an onion that we just
• 24:31
  get to keep getting closer and closer to Him as we dig through.
• 24:35
  Yeah, I love those times where you've read a scripture verse
• 24:39
  before, but a word that you passed over just comes alive to
• 24:44
  you in that moment. And I just did this one on the
• 24:49
  the devil likes to prowl like a lion looking for someone to
• 24:55
  devour. And when I stopped to really
• 24:59
  dissect those verse, I'm like, Oh well, like a lion.
• 25:03
  He's not a lion, but he's acting like a lion and how much he
• 25:08
  tries to copy God. I mean, we know the Lion of
• 25:12
  Judah, right, being the Lord Jesus, and it's like he's trying
• 25:18
  to be that copycat, right? He he can't be creative.
• 25:22
  He just does the same thing and copies.
• 25:25
  Yeah, the Lord and distorts truth.
• 25:28
  So yeah. Absolutely.
• 25:30
  And you know, as we get into God's Word and know it for
• 25:32
  ourselves that way, it causes us to have eyes to see that then we
• 25:37
  can see the schemes of the enemy.
• 25:39
  We can see when just even our own flesh is rearing its head.
• 25:43
  You know, we are more in tune to the Spirit when we have spent
• 25:48
  time in Scripture in that way. That's right, That's right.
• 25:51
  We get more sensitive to hearing his voice and when you were
• 25:55
  talking about the complaining and James I was just I do some
• 26:00
  teaching at my local church too with the women there and we had
• 26:05
  talked about just these little cracks that we can allow the
• 26:09
  enemy to seep through and and so I wanted to bring in some
• 26:13
  uncommon ones like we all know idolatry, sin.
• 26:17
  You know, these are like big cracks, but I I was like, you
• 26:22
  know, the Lord put it on my heart bring up someones that we
• 26:26
  could struggle daily and that can allow the enemy to seep into
• 26:31
  our lives. And so one of them was
• 26:33
  complaining and how much that that negativity just sets a
• 26:39
  horrible environment and it's contagious.
• 26:42
  You know, you, you have a spouse that's complaining and then
• 26:46
  you're going in on it and complaining with them.
• 26:49
  And, you know, next thing you know it, you're just, you know,
• 26:52
  living in this grumbling. And then, you know, we know how
• 26:56
  that turned out for the Israelites.
• 26:58
  Not good, right? So it's like he it's
• 27:02
  disobedience. He doesn't like it, you know.
• 27:04
  So why are we doing that? Because it's all for our own
• 27:06
  good. We should just be speaking words
• 27:09
  of faith in life. Absolutely, yeah.
• 27:11
  And and as we get into the word that, you know, what's in our
• 27:15
  heart is overflowing into our math, our conversation.
• 27:19
  And So what are we putting in our heart and what are we
• 27:22
  meditating on? And that's what's going to come
• 27:25
  out when we speak. So.
• 27:26
  Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so good.
• 27:29
  All right. Is there anything else you would
• 27:31
  love to add about your tend method here that we haven't
• 27:36
  covered? No, I think one of the big
• 27:38
  things that I hope that and I feel like I've seen happen
• 27:44
  through women doing the tent method, it's it has dissipated
• 27:49
  this overwhelm and just the lie that we can't understand
• 27:53
  Scripture because Jesus told us in John 14.
• 27:57
  I think it's verse 26 that he says about the whole the he
• 28:00
  sends the Holy Spirit to be the helper that will illuminate the
• 28:03
  words that he's spoken to us. And so we believers in Christ,
• 28:08
  you have the Holy Spirit living in US, have the ability to
• 28:11
  understand his word. And I think it's just a lie of
• 28:15
  the enemy. It's a lie of our own flesh.
• 28:19
  It's a lie sometimes, often of our culture, even our Christian
• 28:23
  culture that says you've got to buy these things and and do
• 28:27
  these other things in order to understand God's word.
• 28:30
  And the reality is we don't we can actually understand it for
• 28:34
  ourselves. And so I feel like the tend
• 28:37
  method has helped women to slow down and just lean into God's
• 28:43
  word that way. And the Bible studies that have
• 28:46
  you know, I did the Ruth finding grace through finding grace in
• 28:51
  the unexpected came out last fall.
• 28:53
  And then first Peter, now sustained by living hope.
• 28:55
  And then James comes out that later this year and all of those
• 29:01
  studies are really just a guide for women to be able to tend
• 29:04
  through Scripture. It's it frees you up to be able
• 29:08
  to then do that with any book of the Bible once you learn the
• 29:12
  tend method. So yeah, I mean, that is that's
• 29:15
  really my hope is just that women would be encouraged to
• 29:17
  know that that they can understand God's Word.
• 29:21
  And then that's how they, you know, share it with their
• 29:24
  children and share with their communities and their friends.
• 29:26
  And we grow so much strong hunger when we have been watered
• 29:32
  and fed in the word. That's right, 100%.
• 29:36
  Well, I love it. I mean, I was so curious because
• 29:40
  I didn't know what it stood for. So I'm like, oh, this curiosity
• 29:43
  and I absolutely love it. I can see how it just, it works
• 29:49
  and it simplifies things and, and to a point though, where
• 29:54
  you're actually getting the revelation from the word because
• 29:58
  you're implementing all the important points to actually
• 30:03
  live it out. And we know when we're living it
• 30:06
  out, that's when the revelation happens.
• 30:09
  And so when we're actually not just hearers of the word, but
• 30:12
  doers. So absolutely love that.
• 30:14
  Marielle, thank you so much for coming on here.
• 30:17
  Where can people connect with you and get involved in your
• 30:20
  community? Yeah, I'm at
• 30:23
  marielledavenport.com and there is a tab there for community.
• 30:29
  I'm Tending Together. There is the online Bible study
• 30:32
  community and and I want to give your listeners the opportunity
• 30:35
  to join me for only $5 a month to just give it a try.
• 30:40
  See if it's something that they would want to do.
• 30:43
  If they use the code Podcast 5, then when they go to Tending
• 30:48
  Together Community, then they'll be able to sign up for $5 and
• 30:52
  get a month for 5 bucks and be able to just see if it's
• 30:55
  something they want to try. You know, we do online retreats
• 30:58
  there. We do ongoing tend Bible
• 31:00
  studies, we do spiritual practices and just all kinds of
• 31:05
  things to just really tend our souls like a garden.
• 31:09
  And it is such a beautiful thing to see women from around the
• 31:12
  world just coming together to do that.
• 31:14
  So yeah, I would love for your listeners to join me.
• 31:17
  I love it. Well, thank you so much.
• 31:20
  And I'll put that down on the show notes below underneath this
• 31:24
  podcast. You'll see a link there and just
• 31:27
  click on that and sign yourself up.
• 31:29
  Thanks, Marielle. Thanks so much Jamie.
• 31:31
  This is fun. Thank you so much for listening
• 31:35
  today, and I trust that God has encouraged you through this
• 31:38
  story. Did you know this podcast is on
• 31:41
  YouTube? Hop on there and subscribe and
• 31:44
  you can see a live recording of each episode.
• 31:48
  And For more information on this ministry and to access free
• 31:52
  downloads, please visit my website at jamieelizabeth.com.
• 31:56
  That's JAYME elizabeth.com and let's connect beyond this
• 32:02
  podcast by going to my Instagram handle, Jamie Elizabeth.
• 32:06
  She speaks life or Facebook. Until next time, my friend, I
• 32:10
  hope God reveals himself through your own life story.