Wrap Yourself in Scripture #4 ~ Tips for Hearing God Every Day

November 24, 2025 by Leave a Comment
WRAP Yourself Scripture #4 ~ Tips for Hearing God Every Day

Tips for WRAP to help you hear God with a message just for you.

Tips for Hearing God Every Day

Have you ever thought, “Can I really hear from God every day?” The answer is, “Yes, you can!” But you have to pause. WRAP can help you hear Jesus Christ with a personal message meant just for you. With WRAP, you’ll discover that God’s Word is truly alive and that He wants to speak to you. But you have to pause and make room for Him. Being faithful in reading and praying the Word of God will transform your life forever! Join us today and discover the tips you need to hear from God every day, pausing for a message specifically for you. (Scroll Down for Podcast.)

Practical Council in the Holy Spirit

Fr. John Horn, in the foreword of our book, WRAP Yourself in Scripture, says,  “WRAP provides a way of receiving practical counsel in the Holy Spirit and a new, intimate relationship with Jesus and the Father. This method of prayer will awaken your inner desire to become more and more ‘filled with all the fullness of God’” (Ephesians 3: 19). Today, we will cover these tips for hearing God every day, pausing, and being ‘filled with all the fullness of God.”

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How Much Time Does WRAP Take?

  • You can follow this method for as little as 10 minutes or much longer.
  • For example, you could take your Bible and journal with you to WRAP in Adoration.

Where should I WRAP?

  • Try to pause for a few minutes every day to practice WRAP.
  • To pause means to intentionally slow down and step away from the chaos of daily life.
  • Spiritually, it’s more than just taking a break; it means you take time to be with God in prayer-a time free of distractions, to pray and connect to His peaceful presence.
  • Go to a place where you can be alone to pray and listen for God’s voice; you may simply shut the door.

What Supplies Do I need for WRAP?

  • You will need an empty notebook to use as your journal, a pen or pencil and of course, your Bible.
  • Keep a zippered notebook or tote bag that holds these supplies so you will have them handy

How do I Select Verses for WRAP?

  • Choose a section from a daily or Sunday Mass reading.
  • You could choose a Psalm.
  • Choose a passage that’s about 5 to 10 verses.

How do I Begin?

  • Close your eyes and picture in your mind that the Lord is sitting with you, and you can sense his loving, sustaining presence.
  • Offer a simple prayer of thanksgiving and invite the Holy Spirit to guide and speak to you.

Personal Application

  • Grab a pen and a small, inexpensive notebook and call it your WRAP Journal, plus your Bible.
  • Turn to Psalm 27  in your Bible and WRAP with it.

Four Part Series

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Wrap Yourself in Scripture #3 ~ Holy, Heavenly Meditation

November 24, 2025 by Leave a Comment
WRAP Yourself Scripture #3 ~ Holy, Heavenly Meditation

WRAP with the “Four M’s of Christian Mediation” will guide you in Prayer and Reflection

Meditation & WRAP

Have you ever wondered if meditation could really be part of prayer? It can! Meditation on Scripture can bring you into a two-way conversation with God. Join us today to learn how to approach the Word of God with Holy Heavenly Meditation and prayer, guided by WRAP. (Scroll Down for Podcast.)

Distinctions Among Prayerful Meditation and Other Forms

There is a big distinction between prayerful Biblical meditation and other forms of meditation. Eastern or New Age meditations have an inward focus on the deepest self. Biblical meditation, on the other hand, brings us into a closer encounter with God and His presence around Scripture. We will cover the “Four M’s of Christian Meditation” and these points:

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Straightforward and Uncomplicated WRAP

  • Christian meditation “engages thought, imagination, emotion, and desire” (CCC 2708).
  • You speak to God from your thoughts, feelings, and desires as you contemplate the message in the verse.
  • What does it mean for the way you act, live, and treat others?

The Bible Encourages Meditation

  • Joshua 1: 8: “You shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to act in accordance with all that is written in it. For then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall be successful
  • Psalm 1: 1-2: Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers; but their delight is in the law of the Lord.
  • Psalm 119: 97 Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long. 
  • Luke 2: 10: Mary treasured all these words [the words from God] and pondered them in her heart.

The Old Testament Hebrew Words translated “Meditation”

  • HÂGÂH, translated “meditate,” means “to murmur or mutter or to repeat over and over,” “to ponder,” and “to deeply imagine” God’s word.
  • SIYACH means to meditate upon, study, ponder, to talk, to speak aloud, and even to sing.

The 4 M’s of Meditation

  • MULL OVER means positively pondering and intensely considering the meaning of the verse.
  • MUTTER means repeating the verse and words aloud and to yourself in order to chew them.
  • MENTALLY IMAGINE means to put yourself in a scene as you read it.
  • MEMORIZE comes easily after mulling over, muttering, and mentally picturing the verse or verses.

Personal Application

  • Grab a pen and a small, inexpensive notebook and call it your WRAP Journal, plus your Bible.
  • Turn to Psalm 1: 1-6 in your Bible and WRAP with it.

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Wrap Yourself in Scripture #2 ~ The Bible: “A Pharmacy Open to All Souls”

November 24, 2025 by Leave a Comment
Wrap Yourself in Scripture #2 ~ The Bible: “A Pharmacy Open to All Souls”

The Bible is: “A pharmacy open to all souls….with remedies just right for your cases.”

A Pharmacy

Did you know the Bible offers a “pharmacy open to all souls” with remedies for your worries and troubles? Saint Basil the Great tells us this and more.  Join us today to learn how WRAP – the acronym for Lectio Divina- can help you discover the medicine just right for your body, soul, and spirit. (Scroll Down to Listen.)

WRAP – Simplified Guide to Lectio Divina

Four Stages of Prayer

  • The four stages of prayer described by Rev. Mark Thibodeaux (The Armchair Mystic) include: . Talking at God, Talking to God, Listening to God speak to your heart –through reading & reflecting on Scripture daily, Resting in God’s presence, enjoying His company.
  • Take the Self-report Prayer Survey in WRAP Yourself in Scripture, 4th Edition, by Karen & Lawrence Dwyer, or download the bookmark from WRAPYourselfinJoy.com.

St. Basil the Great

  • “The Holy Spirit composed the Scriptures so that in them, as in a pharmacy open to all souls, we might each of us be able to find the medicine suited to our own particular illness…and in the Books of Psalms we can find… remedies just right for their cases.” (Spidlik, T., & Drake, P. (1993). Drinking from the Hidden Fountain: A Patristic Breviary, Liturgical Press.)
  • He reminds us that the Lord, encountered through the passages of Scripture, heals our cases.
  • Cases can refer to problems, worries, anxieties, rejection, and much more.

Personal Application

  • Grab a pen and a small, inexpensive notebook and call it your WRAP Journal, plus your Bible.
  • Select a Scripture passage WRAP with Psalm 103: 1-13 again.
  • Go to a quiet place to be alone for 10 minutes.
  • Pray, ask, and open your heart for God. Begin your prayer of thanksgiving. Acknowledge that the Lord is with you. Thank Jesus, that He wants to speak to your heart today through Scripture. Pray, Come, Holy Spirit, and enlighten my mind to Your truth.”
  • Spread out the W R A P in your journal over at least one page.
  • Download the template bookmark from the website WRAPyourselfinJOY.com and practice WRAP.

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Finding Joy in Tough Times ~ Transformed By God’s Grace ~ Ruth #7

September 5, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Ruth #7 Transformed by Grace

Ruth #7 Transformed by Grace

Finding Joy in Tough Times ~ Transformed by God’s Grace Episode #7

If your life needs transformation, consider reading the Book of Ruth, where God powerfully transforms each character  and wants to do the same for you. God’s faithfulness can bring triumph out of tragedies, restoration from waywardness, and blessing out of loss. Join us today as we conclude our series on the Book of Ruth.

Finding Joy in Tough Times is a seven-part series. Today, we will cover these points. (Scroll down for the podcast.)

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The Family

  • The beautiful, gracious, and even joyous Naomi, according to the meaning of her name suffers great loss. (Ruth 1-3)
  • Elimelech and family left Bethlehem, meaning house of bread to find more bread during the famine.
  • Naomi’s husband died and the two sons married Moabite wives – Orpah and Ruth.
  • They lived in Moab about ten years, and both sons died.
  • In Ruth 1:16, Ruth made a declaration of loyalty to Naomi and the God of Israel -it changed her life forever.

Naomi Becomes Mara but returns to Naomi

  • Naomi said, “Do not call me Naomi [pleasant, gracious, joyous]. Call me Mara [bitter], for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. 21 I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty…the Lord has afflicted me, and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?” (Ruth 1: 19)
  • Ruth returned home after gleaning in Boaz’ fields with 30 pounds of grain.
  • Naomi praises and blesses the Lord again; joy returns.
  • Naomi sees God’s footsteps in their lives: Boaz to become the kinsman redeemer and agrees to marry Ruth and become her kinsman redeemer.

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Boaz, a Messianic Type of Christ

  • Boaz’s loving-kindness shadows God’s love sent to us in Jesus Christ.
  • As the kinsman redeemer, Boaz was a Christ-like figure.

Ruth, the “Worthy Woman”

  • Boaz described Ruth as one known as a “worthy woman” among the people. (Ruth 3:11)
  • These exact words appear in Proverbs 31: 10-31.
  • She is foremost “a woman who fears the Lord” and “to be praised” (v. 30).
  • Boaz, her husband, was “known in the city gates when he sits among the elders in the land” (v. 23).
  • “Her children rise and bless her; her husband too, her husband also, he praises her” (v. 28), as seen in the record of Matthew 1: 5 where she will be praised and remembered forever as a great-grandmother of King David and member of Christ’s lineage.

The Marriage, the Lineage of David and Jesus Christ

  • JOY multiplies for Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz as the town’s women pray a blessing over their lives and new life  Obed (Ruth 4).
  • Boaz and Ruth are in the lineage of David (Ruth 4: 18-22) and of Jesus (Matthew 1).
  • Once a prostitute and Canaanite, Boaz’s mother was Rahab, who helped Joshua’s spies.

Blessings

  • Blessing Prayers are themes of Ruth, and there are seven recorded blessings.
  • Blessings are one of five types of prayer : 1) blessing or adoration, 2) petition, 3) intercession, 4) thanksgiving, and 5) praise .
  • A blessing for another proclaims God’s goodness, kindness, and power and it includes a petition asking God to share His goodness, power, compassion, and favor to change a situation.
  • Ruth includes blessings of Naomi praising God and asking for the daughters-in-law, Boaz blessing and praying for Ruth, the neighbors blessing and praying for Naomi, Ruth Boaz and Obed (Ruth 1: 17, 2:4, 12; 2:19–20; 3:10, 4:11-12, 14).

God is the HERO of RUTH!

  • Ultimately, God is the hero of the Book of Ruth.
  • God directs each detail and composes everything according to His divine purpose.
  • God’s grace leads us beyond the short span of our lives- He blesses us in our earthly lives and uses us to impact our immediate sphere and generation, as well as those in the generations to come.
  • Let’s remember to look to God in impossible situations and allow him to impact the next generation through our witness and loving-kindness.

Links

Seven Part Series Finding Joy In Tough Times

Cup of JOY

Karen offers Cup of JOY Women™ or  Cup of JOY Gathering,™  which include  FREE study guides to accompany every podcast in each series: Finding JOY, A Joy-filled Advent, Esther for This Time: Joyful Reversals, Nehemiah & Rebuilding Hope, Joyful & Battle Ready,  Ruth & Finding Joy in Tough Times  W  or  WRAP Yourself in Scripture.  Sign up at Karen’s Website.

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Finding Joy in Tough Times ~ Final Blessings and Reversals ~ Ruth #6

August 24, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Final Blessings & Reversals: Episode 6 ~ If you need restoration or turnarounds in circumstances of pain, sorrow, or emptiness, look to the Book of Ruth. Join the podcast today as the Book of Ruth reveals God's offer to rescue, deliver, and restore you. #thebookofRuth #KarenDwyer #wrapyourselfinjoy #wrrapyourselfinjoypodcast #podcast #christianpodcast #catholicpodcast

Boaz Marries Ruth

Do you need restoration or turnarounds in pain, sorrow, or emptiness, look to the Book of Ruth. Join the podcast today as the Book of Ruth reveals how God offers to rescue, deliver, and restore you.

Finding Joy in Tough Times ~ Final Blessings and Reversals Episode #6

Finding Joy in Tough Times is a seven-part series. Today we cover these points:

Problem: Another Redeemer

  • Ruth asked Boaz to initiate the Levirate Marriage legal procedure and become her husband.
  • In reply, Boaz blessed Ruth and told her he would all that she asked
  • Another was closer kin and had the right to redeem her.

 The City Gate (Ruth 4: 1-6)

  • The City Gate (Ruth 4:1) was the business district in ancient Israel
  • .Boaz was wise in his approach with the possible other kin and “goel”
  • The goel refused when he heard the stipulation that he must marry Ruth the Moabitess.
  • He turned his right over to Boaz.

The Legal Transaction (Ruth 4: 7-10)

  • Boaz chose 10 men to witness his conversation and exchange of a sandal.
  • Boaz agrees to marry Ruth and claim the land to maintain the Elimelech – Mahlon name on the inheritance.
  • Elimelech’s family name is alive in the community for all generations.

The Blessings (Ruth 4: 11-14)

  • The sixth blessing is a powerful prayer spoken by the elders for Boaz and Ruth – from the Bible.
  • Rachel and Leah were the mothers to the twelve sons or leaders of the twelve tribes of Israel.
  • Tamar has a levirate marriage too; the witnesses prayed for Ruth to have a son and be famous in Israel.
  • In the final blessing, Naomi receives kin and a grandson.

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Personal Application

  • What impacts you most from Ruth 4?
  1. God is a God of Reversals. He can do miracles. You too can have a reversal in circumstances. If you need one, ask the Lord in prayer, Stay faithful. Remember his promises, especially Ephesians 3:20
  2. God is a Redeemer. He not only reverses situations, but He redeems them. A redeemer is one who rescues, saves, restores and delivers. Elimelech’s name has been redeemed. His land has been redeemed; the family name has been restored in Bethlehem. Ruth is no longer called a widowed Moabitess from a pagan culture, she is has become the wife of Boaz. She is no longer a barren woman, she is a mother. So if you need a redeemer for your life, call on Jesus. He will rescue, deliver and restore you. Remember: Jeremiah 30:17 and Colossians 1: 13-14.

Links

Seven Part Series Ruth: Finding Joy In Tough Times

Consider hosting a weekly one-hour Cup of Joy small group study that accompanies each podcast series, especially this one. Read more (here) on hosting a CUP of JOY Women or Cup of JOY Gathering small group.  It’s free, and I will send you the materials you need for the one-hour discussion and study.

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Finding Joy in Tough Times ~ Waiting in Peace ~ Ruth #5

August 16, 2024 by Leave a Comment
Waiting in Peace Episode 5 ~ Is waiting in peace for God to answer a prayer difficult? It can be challenging for every Christian.  The Book of Ruth shows us that God is at work even when we don’t see the answers yet, so we can His rest in peace.. #thebookofRuth #KarenDwyer #wrapyourselfinjoy #wrrapyourselfinjoypodcast #podcast #christianpodcast #catholicpodcast

Ruth #5-Finding Joy in Tough Times-Waiting in Peace

Is waiting in peace for God to answer a prayer difficult? It can be challenging for every Christian.  Join the podcast today as the Book of Ruth shows us that God is at work even when we don’t see the answers yet, so we can His rest in peace.

Finding Joy in Tough Times ~ Waiting in Peace Episode #5

Finding Joy in Tough Times is a seven-part series. Today, we will cover these points:

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Wait Time

  • Time has passed between Chapters two and Chapter three of Ruth—between two and three months.
  • Waiting often prepares our hearts to what’s ahead in life.
  • Time and love prepared Naomi and Ruth for God’s blessing and challenges that were about to come.

Wash and  Anoint Yourself (Ruth 3: 1-5)

  • Naomi wants a husband and home life for Ruth.
  • She reminds Ruth that Boaz is the kinsman and landowner  who just happens to be winnowing barley that night.
  • Naomi gives Ruth four instructions and Ruth obeys.
  • Uncovering his feet, was signaling Ruth wants to be his wife and he, her kinsman redeemer!

Boaz was Startled! (Ruth 3: 6-13)

  • Boaz was startled to find a woman lying at his feet.
  • By asking him to spread his cloak over her, Ruth was repeating Boaz’s words of Ruth 2 when he blessed her for seeking refuge under the wings or cloak of God.
  • In Ezekiel 16:8, God even uses the same phrase saying he will spread his cloak over Israel in covenant love to protect the nation and make the nation his forever just like the covenant commitment in a marriage.
  • Boaz says he will marry her and spread his cloak (meaning provision, protection and warmth) over her; everyone in the village knows she is a worthy woman (in Hebrew word haill) which means honorable, noble and excellent.

Problem: Another Redeemer

  • Boaz agrees to marry Ruth but says a closer kinsmen exists who legally has the first opportunity to marry her and claim the land of Elimelech that might have gone to Mahlon.
  • Boaz likely had been considering his obligation – he knew he was in line to be the kinsman-redeemer.

Provision and More

  • Boaz, in his display of hesed love, gives Ruth 60 pounds of Barley to take back to Naomi.
  • Naomi would understand the gift of barley to mean Boaz was giving his word in agreement with God’s laws.
  • She said to Ruth, wait my daughter, let your heart be peaceful, you can count on Boaz to work this out.

Personal Application

What impacts you most from Ruth 3?

  1. Surrender & Trust. At one point on the threshing floor, Ruth came to complete trust and complete surrender to God and his laws. She did everything she knew to do and now would trust the rest to God. Proverbs 3: 5-6 reminds of the same: Proverbs 3: 5-6 reminds us we can count on God. Surrender you needs to him and trust he is leading you as you walk forward.
  2. Wait in Peace, God is at Work. Remember that while waiting for God to answer but not seeing answers yet, God is still at work. We can pray with Psalm 27: 13-14 that reminds us God will answer, He is at work while we wait.   Our Savior Jesus will “settle the matter for us” always.  Even if you feel empty like Naomi did, wait on God and His son Jesus.  You will see that He will settle the matters for you. Proverbs 16: 3 also assures us of this.  Repeat these Scriptures daily, declare them to yourself and pray them.

Links

Seven Part Series Finding Joy In Tough Times

Consider hosting a weekly one-hour Cup of Joy small group study that accompanies each podcast series, especially this one. Read more (here) on hosting a CUP of JOY Women or Cup of JOY Gathering small group.  It’s free, and I will send you the materials you need for the one-hour discussion and study.

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