It all keeps coming back to how you spend time with the Lord. It begins daily reading the word. Read your Bible through like a novel at least once a year. That will give you direction as to what areas to focus on. Then from that comes more areas to focus on. It will turn out the areas of focus were to make you grow in Christ rather than discover some new or entertaining doctrine for others to Oooo and Awww at. Desire what ministers to you, MB, then you will have power to minister to others, growing with them.
It is so awesome how God talks to us thru life. We can see God speak to us the same message over and over in a sermon, a video, a book, an article, a situation happening in our lives. God just seems to know what we need in our study of His Word and our spiritual walk with Him. Sometimes, the Lord will just want us to know a certain passage in a powerful way, too.
For example:
Back when I lived in Ohio: There was this baby deer that was living in my back yard once for about two weeks. It's mother would come by and feed it and then leave. However, it would make noises to it's mother at night, which would sometimes make it hard for me to sleep. So the one day, I was presented with an opportunity to get rid of this baby deer safely. So I decided to put on my black rubber work gloves and go outside in order to grab him gently and throw him over the chain link fence back into the forest where it's mother was at.
So I walked really slow and got really close to him; And just when I was about to grab him, he quickly bolted to the front of the house. This scared me a little, because I did not want the little guy getting hit by any cars in the front of the house, seeing I live on a busy street. However, when I got to the front of the house, he did not go near the traffic of the road, which was good. So he started to move back towards the back yard again. However, this time he went into the neighbor's back yard. This was perfect because they had a gate to their back yard so I could close it behind me, ensuring my capture of the little guy.
So I pinned him behind some stacked up wood behind the neighbor's shed and I grabbed him. He was kicking and screaming as I held him in my hands; And then I threw him over the chain link fence back into the forest. He landed safely on the other side of the fence; And later, I eventually seen him reunite with his mother (Which put me at ease).
However, afterwards I kept thinking to myself of how scared this baby deer was when I was holding it in my hands. I mean, it had no idea what I was going to do it. It probably thought I was trying to either eat it or hurt it in some way. In fact, I could actually feel the fear dripping off of this poor little guy.
Anyways, later that evening, when I was watching a video on "
YouTube" by Chuck Missler, as per my usual routine thru out the week (back then), he told me about the following passages ...
Isaiah 13:11a -
" And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity ..."
Isaiah 13:13 -
"Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger."
Isaiah 13:14 -
"And it shall be as the chased roe, and as a sheep that no man taketh up: they shall every man turn to his own people, and flee every one into his own land."
So I said to myself. What is a "roe"?
So I looked it up on the internet and low and behold, a roe is a baby deer! Here I was just a few hours earlier chasing a baby deer and I could feel it's fear in the fact that I was chasing it. This was a passage that God wanted to show me. He wanted to show me that the world will one day run in fear as the chased roe when God (i.e. Jesus Christ) will return to end all evil and iniquity. It was powerful!