There is no doubt to the fact that we can only be empowered to fulfill God's purpose for our lives in the place of prayer and the study of God's Word. It's not just reading the word, but studying it.
While studying certainly involves reading, reading is not the same as studying. To study God’s Word means that we prayerfully devote time and attention to acquiring advanced knowledge on a particular person, subject, theme, passage, or book of the Bible.
A multitude of study resources is available, including biblical commentaries and published Bible studies that enable us to feast on the “meat” of God’s Word (Hebrews 5:12-14).
We can familiarize ourselves with these resources, then choose a topic, a passage, or a book that piques our interests and delve in.
*'' In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! 13 Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.'' - Hebrew 5 vs 12 - 14