The Bible-Reading Advice That Changed This Podcaster’s Life

Published: May 4, 2026

Bible, faith — Photo by Joel Muniz on Unsplash

By Michaela Gordoni

Christian author Tara-Leigh Cobble struggled to believe that God is good and trustworthy until a pastor gave her some life-changing advice.

“I read all of this [the Bible], and I believe this is truly the word of God. I believe it’s true cover to cover,” she explained to Sheila Walsh on TBN.

“And I don’t like Him,” she said of God.

“What do you do when your whole life, earliest memory, all of my relationships…I’ve never felt so desperate in my life as when I finished reading the Bible the first time,” The Bible Recap author said.

As she read, she felt like she would make a better God than God Himself.

“That pastor…had walked through scripture with me for a year,” she recalled. “He said, ‘Tara, I’ve worked with you for a year. I see the kinds of questions that you’re asking about scripture, which lets me know the lens that you’re reading scripture through. So I have a new challenge for you. I want you to read it again…and this time, I want you to look for God and stop looking for yourself.”

On the “Net Positive Podcast,” she shared that she had other struggles with reading the Bible.

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“I thought], ‘I feel like I got the main parts.’ I feel like my familiarity was keeping me from intimacy,” Cobble recalled.

“I would get to Leviticus, and that’s where the train went off the tracks,” she said. Her pastor helped her “not only understand God’s Word but also love God’s Word.”

When she came to love God’s word, it became her mission to help others love it, too. This gap led Cobble to create her “Bible Recap” podcast and take others on her journey.

She also previously shared, “I grew up in the church, and I was so used to reading the Bible looking for myself: ‘What’s my takeaway? What’s my to-do list? How can I be a good Christian so that God gives me what I want?’ It was transactional.”

After Cobble realized spiritual truths, she went on to write several books. Her book, The Bible Recap for Kids: A 365-Day Guide Through the Bible for Young Readers, won the title of Christian Book of the Year from the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association, Publisher’s Weekly reported. The book has sold over 100,000 copies.

But she doesn’t care about numbers. If she can reach one person for God, that’s enough.

“I don’t care about that,” she said. “I’m able to engage with the one because I’m not thinking about the big number.”

Her latest project is the Knowing God Bible study series, which is available on Amazon.

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