The Word of God

Hi! My name is Skylar Scholten (but I will be Skylar Wenzel in about a week from when this is written!!!) I want to share the story of how the Word of God changed and continues to change my life.

January 1, 2020, one of my basketball teammates challenged me to read the entire Bible in one year. At this point in my life I did not have a personal relationship with Jesus. I was surrounded by Christians, but my heart was not surrendered and I was not living in the fullness that Christ offers! I was playing basketball at Cornerstone University and had been an athlete my entire life, so naturally, I was always up for a challenge. Reading the Bible in a year was just a challenge and I wanted to see if I could do it. I wanted to be able to tell others that I have read the entire Bible. Obviously, my heart was not in the right place.

So for the first time in my life I created a routine of being in the Word every day! And slowly I could feel my heart posture start to change. It went from challenge to desire, from accomplishment to relationship. The Lord speaks to us through His Word. As He spoke creation into existence, He continues to speak love and truth to His children. I like to think of it as ‘the speaking nature of God’. It is unchanging. The Lord spoke to me through His word and the power of the Holy Spirit at work within me guided me into an intimate relationship with Him.

By that summer my life had completely changed. I experienced the healing power of Jesus when my anxiety that I battled for so long was removed completely. I began to befriend believers and grow my community with others who shared the same desire to pursue Jesus wholeheartedly. I became dependent on prayer and continued to spend time in the Word daily, as it became as necessary to my day as the air I breathed.

It’s like growing my relationship with God came from spending time with Him… CRAZY! Just as relationships with people in our lives grow as we spend time together and get to know one another, so does our relationship with God. Soaking in the Word helps me to know God more, and therefore trust Him more. We cannot trust people that we do not know! In the same way, knowing God more only helped me to trust Him more.

There are always ups and downs. Some days I do not feel like spending time in the Word, and other days it’s all I want to do. Through it all, continuing to depend on God as my rock through every season of life is what brings true meaning and peace into my life, and it even makes sacrifice a joy.

In the past 2 months, my entire life has changed! My college athletic career ended, I graduated college, got a teaching job, and I am getting married in one week to the most wonderful man of God!! I am so thankful for these blessings and the provision that God has over it all. His Word continues to guide every decision through every change that life brings, and when nothing else seems consistent, He is.

One of my favorite chapters in the Bible is John 1 because it talks about Jesus as the eternal Word. He continues to speak, as He spoke creation into existence and as He breathed scripture into the world. I continue to pray for ears that can discern His voice and for a heart that is open to learning more from his Word.

And whoever you are reading this, I pray the same for you. <3

May the words of John 1 soak into your heart.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”