Kaitlyn and I wanted to give back to you by sharing some tips and resources to grow your faith in God. Below is our first one! We hope these emails are encouraging and useful to you!

Personally, it can be hard to stay focused while reading the Bible sometimes. Normally, it’s when Kaitlyn and I are waking up in the morning and are too tired to understand what we’re reading. Or when we are reading during the middle of the day and our minds are drifting off to all the other things we need to do. To combat our boredom, Kaitlyn and I have been using the YouVersion Bible audio play feature. The problem is that David Cochran Heath’s voice (the voice of the guy that probably reads your Bible to you) was used to provide a neutral and monotone way to hear the Bible. And I just have a hard time staying focused with a voice like that.

So instead we have been using the ESV app. It has eight different narrators to choose from and ambient music that you can layer behind it. We downloaded the app and gave it a try recently. And it was pretty good honestly. Depending on which voice and song you pick, it literally sounds like you’re listening to a sermon. This is not AI, by the way. They are real narrators.

Listening all the way through Romans with one of the new narrators prevented me from getting lost in what felt like Paul’s side tangents. I really think this was because I could hear this narrator speaking as if it was Paul. Chapters 1-3 talk about how they don’t need to be a Jew to follow Jesus, but then chapter 4 just starts ‘randomly’ talking about Abraham. Once the narrator read all the way through it made sense that Paul was using Abraham as an example of what he was talking about in chapters 1-3, not just going on a tangent.

I have been using it every morning in the shower to stimulate my mind. Instead of just having random wandering thoughts, this narrator is telling me what to think about, the Word. Then when I sit down to read the Bible, I’m already focused on the text and ready to learn more.

The app is free, and the eight new voices cost $2.99/month. This isn’t a sponsorship or anything like that, it has just been changing the game for us recently and figured it might help you! You can download the app here. It’s up to you. Maybe audio is not your thing, that’s fine too! But we pray that you keep loving the Bible even more every single day.

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