3 little things... favorite Bible study tools {with a printable!}

There's a stark difference in my day when I take time to give myself a hard reset and a fresh start by reading my Bible first thing in the morning. Ideally, I get up early and enjoy the quiet and solitude of a still house at dawn, but of course, with three kids, someone is often bound to be up early with me.

The season I'm in right now is all about surviving and making do. I might not get uninterrupted time to journal my heart out like I did before I was a mama but that doesn't mean I can't read a few verses, review some prayer requests, and center my heart on the Lord even on mornings where the chaos starts early.

Here are a few things that make me happy as I dig into the Word.

1. My Bible

I've been using a Crossway journaling Bible over six years now, but just this year I upgraded to a real leather version with a single column of text instead of a double column (bottom right photo above shows compares the two). I feel like the text lines up with my notes better with the single column. I've always been a verse-underliner and love inserting interesting notes so this Bible is really perfect for me. I hope it lasts me for many, many years, and gets super worn with lots of notes. There's nothing better than a worn, well-loved Bible.

2. My pen

Thanks to my friend Susan, I finally discovered the best pen to use with this Bible, a Micron .25 mm. It's a very fine point so that I can write tiny notes, it doesn't smudge (she's a lefty so that was key for her to find), and it's archival quality. The other great idea Susan gave me was to use a new color each year. I started with brown, and I love how it writes, and how it, surprisingly, doesn't show through the pages like I thought this kind of pen might.

3. A little guidance

I'm so excited for my CBS class to start up in two weeks-- I love having the homework to give me something focused to study in the Word (we're studying Daniel and Revelation this year!). But I'm also reading through all the epistles on my own, and hope to continue that even when CBS starts as they provide such practical advice on the way I want to live my life... and also, there's so much to underline and notes to transfer from my old Bible to my new one!

This summer for our women’s small groups we did some inductive Bible studying. I created a pretty little bookmark using some of the questions that our leadership team put together for a simple way to read the Bible and study it inductively. I laminated these for my girls and me to keep in our Bibles, always handy for us to use as we read the Word-- to not just gloss over what we read but to really extrapolate some tangible takeaways from it.

I wanted to share it with you, too! You can click to download the PDF of the  inductive bible study bookmark.

Linking up with Amy of MomAdvice for 3 Little Things. :)

What are your favorite Bible study tools?

Affiliate links included. Thank you for your support!