Putting God's Word First

Dannah Gresh: If you struggle to find time to open your Bible on a regular basis, Gretchen Saffles wants to encourage you.

Gretchen Saffles: I have never spent time in God’s Word and regretted it. I’ve never chosen to set aside something else and spend time in God’s Word and gone, “Man, I really wish I had been on my phone during that time.” Never! Because this Word is life and it is light.

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Lies Women Believe and the Truth That Sets Them Free, for April 29, 2026. I’m Dannah Gresh.

Have you taken a look at your screentime recently—that little feature on your phone that tells you how many minutes or, let’s be real, hours you’ve spent online each day? That can be a bit of a rude awakening, am I right?

“What do you mean I’ve spent five hours this week shopping on Facebook Market Place?!” It’s all too easy to scroll precious days away.

It has had me wondering, What would our Bible stats be if we could check those? Gretchen Saffles says it’s our time in God’s Word that matters most.

She was a speaker at our most recent True Woman conference, and she really is a kindred spirit.

She’s the founder of an online ministry called Well-Watered Woman, and she’s written several books, including one called Word Before World: One Hundred Devotions to Put Jesus First. Such a relevant, needed topic, and we’re going to focus there today.

Gretchen recently joined us at a Revive Our Hearts’ staff chapel to answer one simple question: How do we fight daily to put the Word before the world?

Janine Nelson, our VP of marketing was part of that conversation as well. Let’s listen.

Janine Nelson: Gretchen, for those that don’t know her, she’s the founder of an online ministry called Well-Watered Woman. She has a book by that same title. Well-Watered Women. I love the subtitle of this book: Rooted in Truth, Growing in Grace, Flourishing in Faith. And, again, it’s something that really resonates with us.

She also has created several devotionals to help women to be in the Word every day, to know and love Jesus.

Today we’re going to be talking specifically about this book of hers, Word Before World. I just remember when we were planning our True Woman ’25 conference, and knew it was going to be on the Word: Behold the Wonder . . . Nancy was thinking of the breakout sessions, and she said, “We have to get Gretchen there to do “Word Before World.”

So thanks for being with us today, Gretchen. It’s like a little family reunion here. It sounds like you’re just an extension of us, and we’re just grateful for you.

Gretchen: Oh, thank you, Janine. I’m so grateful to be here. And just even getting to see a little glimpse of what God is doing at Revive Our Hearts from the inside is such a joy. I feel so full from the conference, and I know that many, many people do.

Janine: Aww, yes.

Well, I am excited to dig in a little bit. We are reading through the Bible this year, inviting women around the world to do that with us.

So I want to talk about Word Before World. Just unpack for us. Where does that come from? What does it mean to put the Word before the world? Can you just give us a little background?

Gretchen: Absolutely. So, it actually comes from the Word—praise the Lord. That’s where all good things come from. John chapter 1. The whole idea actually came when I was in a season of feeling very dry spiritually. 

I looked back and kind of did a little post-mortem of, “What is happening in my life right now? What are the things that are leading me to this dryness?” I noticed a habit of opening my phone first thing in the morning, looking at it the last thing before I went to bed. I was putting the world before the Word, and it was shaping my heart and my emotions and my desires.

And so at the end of that year, I was reading John chapter 1. I’ve got it right here. It says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.”

And, of course, as I was reading that, I was going, “Wait a second. John is doing something very intentional here. He’s starting his book with the phrase, “In the beginning,” and he’s intentionally drawing the readers, the original audience, back to the very beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, when God, who has always been, who always will be, created with His Word. The very first thing that He created on day one was light, and He used His Word to create them.

And so it all goes back to in the beginning was the Word. The Word came before the world, and the Word always will be. The Word is eternal. We live in a world that is constantly changing. We are constantly experiencing disunity and the pressures to keep up with things that don’t matter eternally.

And so we go back to the Word, and we remember that this is what we build our life upon. When it feels like the world is falling apart, it’s God’s Word that holds us together because ultimately Christ is the Word. And we know in Colossians 1:15–16 that He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.

So the whole idea, it comes from the Word, and God created the world this way, and it’s His Word that gives us life and gives us light as we live in a dark world.

Janine: That’s amazing. Thanks for that perspective and drawing us back to the answers in the Word itself.

Gretchen: Yes.

Janine: So you were kind of going through a little bit of your own crisis, in a way, of “Why am I feeling this way? Why do I seem to be prioritizing other things and not spending time with the Lord.”

Gretchen: Right.

Janine: A phrase we use a lot around Revive Our Hearts is, “What’s the lie women are believing?”

Gretchen: Right.

Janine: So, just reflecting on your own journey and the answers that you pulled from the Word, what do you think is the biggest lie, or maybe misconception, that people have for not studying God’s Word? How do you respond to them? What’s the answer to that? What’s the truth to the lie?

Gretchen: Yes. If I’m thinking about it from: What are women thinking? What is this misconception? What is this lie they’re believing? I think a lot of times they will look at Scripture, and they’ll feel overwhelmed and believe that “Only my pastor can study this. Only Nancy can study this. Only my Bible study leader or a theologian.”

And really, the truth is that we have been given the Holy Spirit, and He leads us in truth. He illuminates the Scripture.

Any good endeavor is going to take effort, so it’s not easy. It’s very easy for me to just open my phone and start scrolling. That’s a lot easier than it is to open Leviticus and read about the sacrifices and to do the exegetical work of understanding: What did this mean back then? How does this point me to Jesus? How does that change the way I live?”

But that’s where the fruit comes from. That’s where the joy comes from. That is the meat. That’s what keeps us going. And so women, they believe that. They think, Oh, this is just too hard. This is not for me. This is just for my pastor.

I was thinking about Psalm 86:11 this morning that says: 

Teach me your way, O LORD,
   that I may walk in your truth;
   unite my heart to fear Your name. 

Another translation says, “Give me an undivided heart.” I love that—an undivided heart—because so often we do feel divided in our attention, our desires.

And yet, we’ve been given this model in Scripture to pray, and to ask the Lord to give us this undivided heart and to know that He will do it. We have been given the Helper. We’ve been given the Holy Spirit who will teach us the Word, who will help us understand.

God also points us to the local church and to the body of believers that we come together and we study God’s Word in community. We live together. We encourage one another to be obedient to this Word, to stay true to what God says is right and is eternal and gives life.

And so, for women who are feeling like, “This is not for me,” my challenge would be to open it. The conference was about Psalm 119. I love the prayer in Psalm 119, “Open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of your law” (v. 18)

Sometimes we just need to come before the Lord and say, “Lord, open my eyes. Give me a deeper desire for this than for the things of this world. Retrain my appetite and my taste buds to crave this more than I crave the cotton candy that can be found on social media or the news. I want to eat the meat. I want to eat what lasts and nourishes.”

Janine: Yes. That’s so good. We’re encouraging ourselves and others to do that, what you just illustrated right there from Scripture. “Lord, open my eyes. What do You have for me today?”

So often I think, especially when it comes to reading the Bible, we get into this checklist idea of, “Done. Did it.” Instead of really just soaking in it and asking the Lord to speak to us.

Gretchen: Yes.

Janine: You mentioned the undivided heart. It’s a sneaky thing that Satan does.

Gretchen: Yes.

Janine: Even in an undivided heart, it can be two good things competing with each other.

Gretchen: Right.

Janine: Time with the Lord or, “But I can get busy about ministry, and I’m doing these other good things.” It’s such a little sneaky distraction from just really helping us stop and spend time with the Lord and to ask Him to open our ears and have a soft heart and hear what He has to say to us.

Gretchen: Right.

Janine: So, here’s a practical question: What do you say to the woman that says, “I just don’t have time to study the Bible”? What’s the answer to that?

Gretchen: I’ll tell you one thing personally that is incredibly humbling. It’s on your phone, and it’s that screen time. Our phones, on most phones, have an update that shares how much screen time and exactly where you’re spending that screen time.

For a long time I actually had it as the main thing on my phone, so that when I pulled it up, I was seeing, “Oh, here’s the minutes going up.” And, “Are these minutes being used in a way that it is purposeful and intentional and in a way that is going to fuel my love for Jesus or in a way that’s going to continually divide my heart and my attention and my affection from Him?”

And so, sometimes it’s having that reality check where we really analyze and go, “Okay. This is actually where I’m spending my time.” And to realize, too, that we always have time to do the things we want to do. 

 

Even as a mom, I have three young children, and it is busy. It is overwhelming at times. And yet, I can still find time, whenever it’s important to me. I can wake up earlier, or I can open my Bible even in the carpool line, or I can invite them to read the Bible with me.

Sometimes I think we get so rigid and feeling like, “This is what time with Jesus is supposed to look like. It needs to be quiet. I need to be feeling like I want to study the Word. I need to have this much time.” And reality says that you’re probably going to be interrupted by your kids, or your mind may be just reeling and going every which direction, or you just may not feel like reading the Bible today.

But what we know is that God’s Word never changes but it always changes us . . . and that includes our desires. I have never spent time in God’s Word and regretted it. I’ve never chosen to set aside something else and spend time in God’s Word and gone, “Man, I really wish that I had been on my phone during that time.” Never! Because this Word is life, and it is light.

And Satan masquerades as an angel of light. So he makes other things seem more appealing. And yet, this is where we are fed. And this is what nourishes our soul.

So I would encourage them to fill their days with truth and to get creative so not to have this rigid . . . Word Before World is not about checking a to-do list off or going, “I read my Bible today, now I can just move on past it.” It’s a way of life. It’s living in a way that we go, “Okay, God, this day is Yours. My children are Yours. My schedule is Yours.”

And even reading the news and going, “I’m going to read this through the lens of Scripture. I’m going to read and to consume things through the lens of Scripture so that I can be discerning.”

And one thing that’s so beautiful is we have these phones that have the audio Bible. I remember in college, and this was a very long time ago. It was before we had audio Bibles or anything, and my Bible . . . My pastor’s wife was also a Bible teacher, Bible study teacher, and she said that she would turn on a tape that had audio recordings of the Bible. She had five kids and was a pastor’s wife—very, very busy. When she would just feel overwhelmed and she needed that time, she would just turn it on and listen to it.

Well, we have great access to that. So even encouraging them to listen to biblical teaching as we’re in the car, we’re doing dishes, we’re running errands, we’re taking walks. To fill our days and our ears with truth as well.

Janine: Yes. That’s so good. There’s that, “How do I find time?” and then there’s, “What do we tell the Bible reader when they’re walking through just a really difficult season?”

I know two people we mutually know, Ciara Dierking, who you met at True Woman.

Gretchen: Yes.

Janine: She was so excited to meet you. We set up a little surprise for you to meet her. I know it was hard not bumping into her in-between the full conference. Your interview with her was at the very end of the conference, but what a sweet conversation you guys had. Here she is just leaning into the Lord and His Word and Scripture in a very hard, hard season of a life-changing event for her and her family, and you encouraged her.

I just saw this little clip on Instagram the other day that she referenced you, and she said, “We’ve committed to memorize some passages of Scripture this year.”

Gretchen: We have, yes.

Janine: That’s so sweet. And just that, like you said, “Don’t make it necessarily a scheduled thing, but let it just kind of embody your life.”

Gretchen: Right.

Janine: And then our own Nancy who, I know is live, sitting here in the room today. When Robert was first hospitalized and it was kind of a day at a time, no one really knew where it was headed. But there was truth for Nancy, just like muscle memory, that came back to her.

Someday she’ll unpack this more from a personal perspective, but what a privilege to go to God in prayer and cry out to Him and how He was delivering to her this supernatural, tailor-made grace, just like an extra infusion of grace . . . and her appreciation and love for the people of God and how they supported and loved her. 

But then, lastly, the Word of God and how all those years of just soaking in it, being in it, having your mind kind of grounded in that, kind of a muscle memory thing. The truth just comes back to you.

Gretchen: Right.

Janine: So, we talked about some tips and some ideas of how to find time to be in the Word, but what would you say to someone going through a season where it’s just hard to open their Bible?

We use the phrase around Revive Our Hearts of “get into God’s Word and getting God’s Word into you.” Why is that especially important when someone is walking through a really tough season, tough trial?

Gretchen: Yes. One thing I think about is, literally, a cactus. In the desert, there’s long, long, long dry seasons, but cactuses, on the inside, they have stored up water to sustain them, to sustain their life (I actually grew up in the desert) so that in those seasons of drought, when the sun is beating down, when there’s not a rain cloud anywhere near, it has life within it.

The same is true for us, that when we’re in these seasons of light and flourishing, we can be studying Leviticus and diving deep in there and doing the work of understanding, “Okay, Lord, what does this mean? And how do I flesh this out in my day-to-day life?” Then when the sun keeps beating down, and we get drier and drier and drier, it’s already in us. It is in us. It has changed us.

And that is what we hold on to. I would encourage women, whenever they’re in a season where it is hard to open the Bible—a season of grief or depression or anxiety or darkness—maybe that’s not the time to be studying or doing a deep dive in Leviticus. Maybe that’s the time to meditate on a psalm and for that to be the Word that anchors you, so that you keep coming back.

I’ll share just a personal testimony. After my third child, I had severe post-partem depression and anxiety. I also had a lot of things that happened physically in my recovery process that were extremely hard and very scary for us. And so, I not only had a newborn, but I had two other young children, little boys who are very rambunctious, and I also was leading Well-Watered Women.

I just came to a breaking point where I was crying out to God. I was going, “I am so dry. This feels so dark, Lord, and I need You. I need Your Word.”

In that season, my sister actually encouraged me to meditate on Psalm 23. I’ve even memorized it. It’s only six verses. How did I not memorize the whole passage? For months, every single day, and every single night, when I’d open my Bible, it was just Psalm 23. It just opens to that spot. I would pray it. I would even sometimes at night go, “The Lord is my shepherd. Lord, You are my shepherd.” And I would just say it over and over and over—even just that one little part, and then you add on to it. “There’s nothing I lack in Him.”

So sometimes in those seasons, we just need to keep feeding ourselves the same truth over and over and over again. It will sustain us, and it will anchor us. It will be what comes back to our mind in future moments.

So every time I have a sleepless night, when I lay down in bed and my mind is just going, or I’m worrying about something; the very first thing that comes to my mind, every single time, is, “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.” Every single time . . . because of those dark moments where I continually fed on Psalm 23 and where my Good Shepherd was leading me. He was leading me and helping me lie down in those green pastures, and He was walking me through the valley of the shadow of death. He was with me.

And so even in these moments, today, I hold on to that. It changed my heart and my brain. It’s like engraved on my mind because of that season. I always pull it back out. So that would even be my encouragement that in seasons like that one, we can meditate and pray the psalms. 

But the other thing would be we have other people around us who can come. They can pray for us and pray over us and speak truth into us. They can be the face that also is holding us in that season.

Praise God that He has given us the ministry of other believers as well in those moments where we may not be able to give, but we can receive the gift of His grace through the ministry of others.

Janine: Amen. And what a gift, what a gift it is to have that treasure in our hearts.

Gretchen: Yes, absolutely.

Dannah: What a sweet conversation that was. I just love Gretchen’s heart for the Word. I’m so grateful for her vulnerability.

Sometimes all we can do is repeat the simple words of a psalm. “The Lord is my shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd.” But the Lord uses those words to sustain us, doesn’t He?

I want to encourage you to meditate on Scripture now—today—before the hard times come. That way, you’ll be equipped with truth to draw from. Remember Gretchen’s cactus analogy? Store up the water of God’s Word in your heart so you’re ready in the days of drought.

One way you can do that is by reading through the Bible with us here at Revive Our Hearts. It’s never too late to hop on. We’re currently studying the first book of Chronicles with women around the world, and we’d love for you to join our sweet community. You can find all the information you need to get started at ReviveOurHearts.com/Bible2026.

To help you meditate on Scripture and hide it in your heart, we’d love to send you the Refresh Journaling Set. It includes Scripture meditation cards and a journal with space for you to really soak in those passages. This resource is yours when you make a donation of any amount before the end of April.

To give, visit ReviveOurHearts.com, or call us at 1-800-569-5959. Be sure to request the Refresh Journaling Set when you do.

Tomorrow, we’re revisiting a classic message Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth gave back in 1996. It’s one of her most passionate calls for revival. I love the way it showcases the very heartbeat of this ministry. It’s gonna challenge you. It’s gonna encourage you. And I hope it lights a fire in you, too. 

Now, before we close, here’s a final encouragement from Nancy. 

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: There's treasure to be had in the Word of God. The reason I take time over and over again on Revive Our Hearts to challenge you to get into the Word and get the Word into you is because I know that once you dig in, you are going to find treasures that are worth more than all the things we spend the rest of our time looking for.

We look for happiness in things and places and people and circumstances and relationships, but there is joy and happiness and delight to be found in God's Word and abundance, more than we can find anywhere else because it's the Word of God that gets us to God. 

And it's in His presence that we find fullness of joy. If you read through Psalm 119, one of the things that stands out to me is how often the psalmist says, “I delight in Your Word.”

This is not just something to check off my to-do list—“I read my Bible today. I had my devotions today.” As I've said before, you can have devotions but not have devotion. There's a big difference, isn't there? I've done a lot of having devotions, but what I want is to have devotion—through the Word—to come to the place where I actually meet with God, encounter Him, and my life is transformed in His presence.

The psalmist says, “There's nothing more delightful to me.”

Look at verse 24, “Your testimonies are my delight.”

Verse 35: “Lead me in the path of your commandments, for I delight in it.”

Verse 47: “For I find my delight in your commandments, which I love.”

Verse 103: “How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!”

Verse 111: “Your testimonies are my heritage forever, for they are the joy of my heart.”

Now, you may be thinking, I just don't have that kind of hunger for the Word of God. It's not a delight to me. It's drudgery to me. I will tell you, I have been there plenty of times myself.

How do you cultivate a hunger and a delight in the Word of God? Can I just say that the more you get into it, the more you read it and study it and meditate on it and do it and watch it change your life, and then go out to share it with others, to reproduce it in the lives of others; the more you will come to delight in the law of the Lord.

Dannah: This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

All Scripture is taken from the ESV.

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