New Blog Address

After 9 months of procrastinating, I am finally going to bite the bullet and switch to a self-hosted blogging platform.

The reason I’ve been procrastinating is because I haven’t been able to decide if I should change the name of my blog or not.

I’ve been waiting for the PERFECT blog name to pop into my mind, but it’s not coming! So I’ve decided to keep the name, but change the domain address to barbraveling.com.

Since I’ve had 3 different blogs and 5 different domain names in my short blogging career, I thought this might be a good idea just in case I ever decide to change the name.

One of the things I didn’t expect when I started blogging was getting to know so many wonderful people. I’ve really enjoyed hearing from you guys and look forward to more conversations.

I’ll be taking the next week two weeks off to work on changing over the new blog and after that I’ll be going back to my once a week schedule with the random second post.

The blog will still be up during the transfer, but it will probably look funny as I play with different designs. I don’t expect to have an incredible new design but at least you won’t have to look at the ads WordPress puts on the blog anymore!

You should still be able to get to the blog at beyondthesinnersprayer.wordpress.com but it may be faster with the new address (barbraveling.com). 

Hope to see you in a couple of weeks!

Bible Study: When God Doesn’t Instantly Change You

One of my goals with this blog is to create Bible study series people can do for years to come. That said, I’ve realized that my New Year’s study should have contained a different week one plan. This is the Bible study I should have included the first week! 

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just say a little prayer—God, please help me reach this goal—then go to sleep and wake up the next day a transformed person?

Unfortunately, God doesn’t usually work that way.

Renewing of the Mind Workshop: Week 4

It seems strange that I can know how to walk with God in one area of my life, but have no idea how to walk with Him in another.

Guest Post: A Recovering Perfectionist

In today’s post, a fellow renewer-of-the-mind answers some questions I posed to her about her experience with the renewing of the mind:

How long have you been actively renewing your mind?  

In some ways, I began as soon as I accepted Christ. Right away, I started memorizing Scripture and applying it to my life. But at some point, in a strange way, it became a tool of the enemy.

Renewing Your Mind with Procrastination

Do you ever feel like you just can’t make yourself work on your goal no matter how hard you try?

I feel like that on a regular basis.

Renewing of the Mind Workshop: Week 3 Plan

How’s everyone doing? We’re into our third week now which is often about the time we get bored or discouraged and think about pitching the whole works.

Bible Study: Spiritual Warfare and Your Goal

Working on a spiritual goal is like working out at the gym with a guy standing next to you saying,

Look at you. You’re a slob. Why not just give up right now and get it over with? On the way home you can stop and get a donut.

10 Lies that Make Us Give Up on New Year’s Resolutions

Do you ever feel like you’re so locked into your old way of doing things that you’ll never change?

When that happens we usually start running those old tapes in our minds: This is too hard. I’ll never change. Why do I bother?

That’s when we usually give up on our New Year’s resolutions.

Renewing of the Mind Workshop: Week 2 Plan

Have you ever watched one of those hoarder shows on television? Where the crew comes in and cleans out a person’s house from top to bottom?

Just think if you tried to tackle one of those houses all by yourself. Wouldn’t it be easy to give up before you ever did enough work to see a huge difference?

Renewing of the Mind Bible Verses

Do you ever feel like you want to have a daily quiet time or renewing-of-the-mind time, but you just can’t make yourself do it? If so, try praying through some of these Bible verses.

Here’s an example of a Scripture prayer you could pray for Jeremiah 31:3-4:

Bible Study: God’s View of Your Goal

It’s easy to think all the Christians in the New Testament were perfect since it doesn’t contain as much history as the Old Testament.

But if we look at the letters Paul wrote, we see they struggled with the same sins we do.

Renewing of the Mind Workshop: Week 1 Plan

If you’d like to develop a renewing-of-the-mind habit, here is a plan you can use for next week.

If any of these assignments don’t make sense or you need some ideas on how to do them, ask me in the comments below.