Welcome to my new series! Before I started this blog, I had another blog called Flowers Fade. I started Flowers Fade as part of a challenge I gave myself to read through the Bible in a year and blog about my reflections on my daily readings. This happened to be the year I got engaged…and married…moved to Arizona…and started grad school. It was a crazy year. But I was faithful to my Bible reading and fairly faithful to my blogging (like once a week-ish). In fact, although my reading was extremely time consuming, I feel like my utter reliance on God’s Word during those twelve crazy months is what sustained me and brought me joy and peace in the midst of so many transitions. Since my Bible reading plan ended in December (okay…on New Year’s Day… I got a little behind on Revelation over Christmas), I have been trying to maintain this blog AND Flowers Fade, and, to be honest, it’s been really difficult! Basically, I have failed at it. But even though my year-long journey through the Bible is done, I have felt really convicted about continuing to post about the Bible and what God is teaching me through His Word. Specifically, I know that God has gifted me with the ability to teach. He has also given me a talent for writing coupled with a passion for instructing other women on what it looks like to live a gospel life. So I cannot give up Flowers Fade completely, even though I am WAY too busy to run two blogs.
So here is my solution! Flowers Fade Friday. Every Friday I will write a short devotion on something from my Bible reading that impacted me during the past week. These will be very similar to the postings I wrote on my old blog, but instead you will find them on this blog! I hope they encourage you to love Jesus more and maybe even lead you to take your own journey through the Bible. If you aren’t a Christian, please feel free to read the postings and ponder. Or skip them. I will be back with regular, ridiculous AZ Russums content every Monday. But, secretly, I hope you don’t skip them… 🙂
For this first posting, I will just fill you in on how Flowers Fade got its name. There is a verse in the Bible that says:
“The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.”
–Isaiah 40:8–
The world is always changing; it’s unpredictable and unreliable. People are fickle and sinful. Times of calamity and times of peace will come and go. People, animals, and even plants are always dying and being born. But one thing never changes and that is God’s Word. Some may claim that parts of the Bible no longer apply to today’s culture, but that is simply not true. Jesus is for all people and all times and all cultures, and the Bible is God’s way of revealing Christ (who is the perfect, human image of God himself) to us. The Old Testament points to Christ’s coming and the New Testament shows us the Savior who lived the perfect life, died to save sinners, and rose again to conquer death and offer us eternal life. The Bible is an absolute reflection of a God who is perfect, holy, loving, eternal, and unchanging. And because God is eternal and unchanging, His Words will never fade away.
