To The One Who Wants To Return.
Dear friend,
I was thinking about you today.
Thinking about how you told me that you used to love reading the Bible. There was a time when opening your Bible felt as natural as breathing. You knew just where to turn because the pages had become familiar friends. Every highlight, every note, every memory of a season when a passage spoke to you . . . these were woven into your story.
But somewhere along the way, that changed.
Life got louder.
You got tired.
Maybe you were hurt by people who spoke for God but didn’t sound much like Jesus.
Maybe you tried another study, downloaded another app, started another journal, and still found yourself staring at the Bible, wondering where to begin or even if you were worthy to pick it up again.
I kept thinking about you because I know that feeling.
I’ve shared before how I once struggled to read Scripture, and how inscribing the Word helped me fall in love with Scripture in a new way. Yet even after all these years, there have been seasons when my daily time with the Word grew distant.
Last year, I started reading the Bible in a year with my husband, Steven. I got to the May/June mark, and life got very busy. One day of not reading became two, then three, then weeks, then before I knew it, the year was over. Steven finished reading the Bible. I didn’t.
It wasn’t because I fell out of love with God and His Word. If I am being honest, I let myself get distracted. All the other things I thought I had to do became louder than the still, small voice of my Lord.
Instead of shaming or condemning myself, I simply began again.
Not on January 1st with a brand new journal and Bible study, but on October 28th, right where I had left off.
I asked the Lord to forgive me for my distractions and for letting other voices take priority over His. I prayed David’s words: “Create in me a clean heart, O God... and restore to me the joy of my salvation” (Psalm 51:10-12).
I came back to the Word. It really was that simple.
My friend, Scripture is full of people who needed to come back.
Consider Peter. Only days after swearing he would never leave Jesus, fear took over, and he denied Him three times near a charcoal fire in the courtyard (John 18). After the resurrection, Peter was left trying to make sense of his failure. So he went back to what was familiar: he went fishing.
When Jesus found him on the shore in John 21, He was cooking fish over a charcoal fire.
John includes that detail for a reason. In fact, a charcoal fire is mentioned only twice in the entire New Testament—first in the courtyard where Peter denies Jesus (John 18:18), and second here on the beach where Jesus restores him (John 21:9).
We all know the smell of a charcoal fire when someone in the neighborhood lights that BBQ… we can all smell it! That scent was unmistakable. The last time Peter smelled a charcoal fire, he was standing in the cold, denying his Lord.
But Jesus didn't bring up the fire to shame Peter. He lit it to restore him. He was renewing Peter’s mind by giving him a new sensory memory in front of the flames. It was as if He was saying, “No longer will this smell remind you of your failure. From now on, it will remind you that you came back, and I restored you.”
Centuries earlier, King Josiah experienced his own return (2 Kings 22–23). God’s people had wandered far into idolatry, and the Book of the Law had been lost under years of neglect and evil leadership.
When Hilkiah the high priest found the scriptures hidden away in the temple, Josiah didn't make excuses. He tore his clothes, wept, read the Word aloud to all the people, and renewed their covenant with God.
“And the king went up to the Temple of the LORD with all the people of Judah and Jerusalem, along with the priests and the prophets-all the people from the least to the greatest. There the king read to them the entire Book of the Covenant that had been found in the LORD's Temple.
The king took his place of authority beside the pillar and renewed the covenant in the LORD's presence. He pledged to obey the LORD by keeping all his commands, laws, and decrees with all his heart and soul. In this way, he confirmed all the terms of the covenant that were written in the scroll, and all the people pledged themselves to the covenant.”
- 2 Kings 23:2-3
I found myself just like God’s people. The Word had been hidden away under rubble, under distraction, under other voices, under “greater” priorities. But when I found it again… when Josiah found it again… we picked it up, repented, and started again.
My friend, I am writing this letter to remind you that you can come back, too.
Not perfectly. Not with a rigid system, or by pretending the distant seasons never happened.
You can just come back.
Like Peter.
Like Josiah.
Like me.
Jesus is still sitting by the fire, asking us to sit down with Him. He isn't holding a record of the days you missed, and He isn't demanding an explanation. He is simply offering an invitation.
Then Jesus said, "Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. [29] Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. [30] For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” - Matthew 11:28-30
This is why Inscribe the Word Monthly exists. I created these monthly Scripture-writing plans specifically for seasons like this: to give you a simple, quiet, doable path back into God's Word. There is no performance and no pressure. All you need is a pen, a passage, a notebook, and a space to listen.
If you are ready to stop staring at the closed cover and open it again, you don't have to do it alone.