by: Mikaela Moore, Keys to Freedom Retreat Assistant Director
Although I grew up in church and was familiar with Scripture from a young age, I didn’t learn to love Scripture until later. As a middle school student in a youth group, I would roll my eyes when the youth pastor talked about the importance of reading the Bible daily or trying to read the whole thing. I would think to myself, ‘Who really even does that besides pastors? It’s so boring and confusing. They can just read it and tell me what I need to know. I don’t need to read it myself.’
But then God captured my heart one summer at a church camp. Until that point, I understood the concept of faith, but I had never truly grasped what it meant to have a real relationship with God. God met me where I was and spoke to my heart in a deeply personal way. When we returned home, I asked one of our youth leaders if he and his wife would be willing to teach me how to read Scripture, as I had tried on my own and given up multiple times. I am forever grateful that they said yes and went on to meet with me and a small group of my friends every other week for about a year.
Over that year, I grew to love Scripture, even when wrestling with difficult passages, because it brought me into a deeper relationship with God. I learned that reading and understanding Scripture for oneself is essential and central to our faith practice. Scripture provides a deeply rooted sense of history and purpose. It teaches us who we are, and it tells us where we came from and where we are going.
Scripture is our main source of truth and our guide for life. When we have questions or doubts, Scripture provides answers. When life gets chaotic and messy, Scripture offers clarity and direction. When we don’t know how to handle a situation, Scripture points us to knowledge and wisdom for making decisions. We learn over and over that the enemy’s biggest tactic is to ask, “Does God really say…?” And if we aren’t rooted in Scripture, we won’t be prepared to battle the enemy with truth.
Scripture gives us the tools we need to renew our minds and change our thought patterns when our thoughts try to turn us away from what is good, right, and true. When we start believing the lies that we aren’t good enough or that God couldn’t truly love us, it is Scripture that reminds us that God’s love is unconditional and that we are made whole in Him, that He sees us as His beloved sons and daughters.
When we experience big emotions—whether joy or sadness, thankfulness or anger, trust or fear—Scripture shows us how to process these emotions and points us back to a deeper relationship with our Father. It helps us know that we are not alone as we process our thoughts and feelings when we walk through the good, the bad, and the ugly that life sometimes throws at us.
Reading and knowing Scripture matters.
The Bible is more than an ancient text for a people in a different time and place. It’s a divinely inspired book filled with history, poetry, prophecy, wisdom, and divine instruction. It tells a unifying story of God’s unconditional love for and redemption of humanity through Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. It is our source of identity, history, and truth in a changing world, and being rooted in Scripture guides our steps and brings us into deeper relationship with the God who delights in walking through the highs and lows of life with us.
About the Author: Mikaela Moore has worked in various positions at Mercy since starting in January 2021 but currently serves as the Assistant Director at our Keys to Freedom Retreat. Before starting at Mercy, Mikaela worked in youth ministry and graduated from Fuller Theological Seminary. She loves spending time with her husband, dog, and new baby daughter.