“It Is Written”
I need to share something with you. On one particular morning, I was in my comfortable “secret place” doing what I always do, snuggled up in the red letters.
For those who don’t know, the red letters in the Bible are the words Jesus spoke. And I lived there. There’s something about reading the words Jesus actually said that feels like a warm blanket straight from heaven.
While I was happily camping out in the Gospels, I heard the Holy Spirit say to me, clear as day: “You can’t have the New Testament without the Old Testament.”
My response? Very mature. Very spiritual.“I know… but I really like it over here.”
Look, I’ll be honest with you. I had studied the Old Testament for decades and it was hard for me. I didn’t connect with it the way I connected with Jesus’ words.
And if I’m being really vulnerable, part of me thought, can’t God just let me sit here in comfort for a little while? But here’s what I’ve learned about God: He is FAR more interested in growing us than letting us sit in comfort. He is more concerned about the process than the outcome.
Meanwhile, I am over here entirely focused on the outcome.
God thinks completely differently than we do, which is exactly why we need to be in His Word.
Otherwise we just keep thinking our own thoughts and calling it faith. So when He said “You can’t have the New Testament without the Old Testament,” I knew. He was calling me deeper.
My response this time was slightly more surrendered: “Okay. Where do you want me to start?” He told me to fast for seven days and read the book of Deuteronomy.
Seven days!
Yikes, Deuteronomy!
Now, I had fasted before, a three-day fast, sure. But seven days? He had my full attention. And honestly? He knew exactly what He was doing bringing up Deuteronomy, because that book had already shown up in one of the most terrifying moments of my life, when my husband Tom was in the hospital after his cardiac arrest and the doctors were asking me to consider organ donation.
The doctors had no hope because 1 out of 10 survive a cardiac arrest. And the one that does typically lives in a nursing home neurologically impaired.
In the middle of that nightmare, God gave me Deuteronomy 30:19-20:
“I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days.” — Deuteronomy 30:19-20 (NKJV)
Choose life.
That’s what I stood on. That’s what I declared over Tom in that hospital room. That’s what I whispered when the doctors were talking about organs and I was talking to God.
I chose life.
I believed for a miracle.
And God honored it.
So when He pointed me back to Deuteronomy?
I knew this was real.
I said YES.
But I want you to understand the season I was standing in when God gave me this assignment. Tom had survived. He was home. And we were grateful, deeply, genuinely grateful.
But surviving a cardiac arrest doesn’t mean life goes back to normal. It means you’re home recovering and the bills start arriving. After 6 months of required recovery, Tom received the devastating news he was out of a job!
Legal? Who knows!
Was it nice? Nope? just business!
We were staring down a mountain of medical debt, $175,000 worth of mountain.
And if you know my husband, you know he is not a man who sits still. He did not want to go on disability. He did not want to drain our savings. He wanted to work. He wanted to provide. That’s who Tom is.
So there I was, husband home recovering, job gone, $175,000 in medical bills, savings dwindling and God said: fast for seven days and read Deuteronomy.
Only God. Only God would give you a Bible study assignment in the middle of a financial emergency. 😄
But I said YES!
Because what else do you do when the One who already saved your husband’s life tells you to do something?
You do it!
I fasted seven days. I read all 34 chapters.
And what God revealed to me stopped me in my tracks. When Jesus went into the desert and was tempted by the enemy, three times, do you know what He said every single time? “It is written.”
Three temptations. Three responses. And all three times, Jesus quoted directly from the book of Deuteronomy.
Here’s what made me put the Bible down and just sit in awe, those three verses Jesus used? They aren’t scattered across the whole Old Testament. They aren’t pulled from a dozen different books. They come from just three verses of Deuteronomy. Chapters 6 and 8. Right there. Tucked together.
When the enemy tempted Jesus to turn stones to bread, He answered with Deuteronomy 8:3, “It is written man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
”When the enemy tempted Him to test God’s protection, He answered with Deuteronomy 6:16, “It is written you shall not tempt the Lord your God.”
And when the enemy offered Him all the kingdoms of the world in exchange for his worship, Jesus answered with Deuteronomy 6:13, “It is written You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only you shall serve.”
Three attacks. Three answers. One book. The book I didn’t want to read. The very book I thought was too hard for me. Jesus used it as His sword. And that’s not all.
I also learned something about fasting that I had never fully understood before, it fosters deeper intimacy with God. It requires you to humble yourself and to strengthen you spiritually.
When the enemy comes to rob your joy, steal your peace, and drag you somewhere that is absolutely not of God, fasting is a shield.
And beloved, in that season? The enemy had plenty of material to work with. The fear alone could have swallowed me whole. But God had me fasting. God had me in the Word. God had me covered.
I sat there after that week just undone. And something shifted in me that hasn’t shifted back. Because here’s what the Holy Spirit showed me and I pray it lands in your spirit the way it landed in mine: Jesus is the RED THREAD woven through every single page of the Old Testament & New Testament.
He’s there in the Garden. He’s there in the sacrifice of Isaac. He’s there in the Passover lamb, in the manna in the wilderness, in the rock that gave water in the desert. He was always there. I just didn’t have eyes to see Him yet.
That’s the gift the Holy Spirit gives you when you surrender to the parts of Scripture that feel hard, distant or dry.
He doesn’t just explain the text, He transforms how you see it. He gives you new eyes. He gives you a heart that’s so tender to His call.
And suddenly the Old Testament isn’t homework anymore. It’s a love letter. It’s a treasure hunt. It’s Jesus, hiding in plain sight across thousands of years, whispering “I was always coming for you.”
I genuinely love the Old Testament now. I never thought I’d say those words. But I do. Because I see Him in it. And then, because God doesn’t just grow you and leave you, He moved.
Our medical bills? Paid in full.
Tom’s job? A new one. A good one.
Every. Single. Mountain. Moved. We did not figure that out. We did not negotiate our way out of $175,000 in medical debt or hustle Tom back into the workforce through sheer determination.
God did that. The same God who armed Jesus in the desert with the words of Deuteronomy. The same God who whispered “choose life” over Tom in that hospital room. He took care of us.
He chose life for us, again. To Him be ALL the praise and ALL the glory. Every single bit of it.
May this testimony remind you not to skip reading and studying the Old Testament. Every bit of it is for you, even the parts that feel like homework. Especially those parts.
Because somewhere in those pages, Jesus is waiting for you to find Him there too. And if you don’t know Him yet, the God who moves mountains, who whispers choose life into impossible situations, who arms ordinary people with ancient words and shows up in every crisis. He is available to you right now.
You don’t have to have it all together. You don’t have to understand the whole Bible. You just have to say yes. That’s my God. I pray that when you don’t understand, you trust His beautiful HEART! ❤️ And in return, all God wants is your ❤️!
Xoxo,
Mom