By Jacob Vangen
How do you experience Scripture, really?
I want to share three truths with you.
- Engaging, reading, and memorizing Scripture are core practices for all disciples of Jesus.
- Our engagement with Scripture can become repetitive, stale, and boring, just like any other habit or practice in life.
- There are various methods by which we can engage with Scripture to help prevent this stagnation.
Dallas Willard has said that many people’s experience of Scripture is choking it “down like medicine because someone told us that it would be good for us—though we really do not find it to be so.”
Have you ever experienced that? I know I have, even as a leader in the church. I believe Scripture is God’s very own word to us and essential for life in the kingdom. However, my humanity, my worries, and my bad habits get in the way. Can you relate?
What we imagine as an ever-growing, always-getting-better, up-and-to-the-right relationship with the Bible is anything but. In reality it has its ups and downs and twists and turns, just like everything else.
Is the journey too difficult or is it an invitation to press deeper into our discipleship?
Different ways for different seasons
Thank God there are many ways we can engage, read, and meditate on Scripture.
I suggest we switch up our methods to keep our engagement fresh. While the medium (Scripture) never changes, the methods must change in our dynamic and deepening relationship with God.
The method I’ll suggest today is called Lectio Divina, a Latin phrase which means “divine reading.”
I love this way of reading Scripture as it helps my mind and body to slow down to actually be with God. In our busy lives, I think this is a desperate need for the church today.
So often we read the Bible like a newspaper. We get the information and move on. The Bible is designed primarily not just for information but for transformation and to be read over and over again.
This is where Lectio Divina becomes helpful.
While originally designed by St. Ignatius of Loyola, different people will offer different explanations for Lectio, but we’ll look at Dallas Willard’s way of engaging in this practice.
The Willard Way
First, find a quiet place of solitude that encourages your relationship with God.
Next, select a relatively small passage of Scripture. Think of a shorter psalm or short chapter, no more than 10–12 verses.
Be prepared to read that passage five times slowly with pauses in between. If you’ve never read a passage like this before, that’s okay. Embrace the new and remember God wants to get his word deep in our hearts.
Willard offers five steps to follow that build upon each other. Slowly engage in each one with pauses between.
- Information: Read the passage of Scripture.
- Longing: What in this passage do you want to be true in your life?
- Affirmation: Affirm this longing is actually true in Christ.
- Invocation: Ask that God would make these realities experientially known to be true in your life.
- Appropriation: Notice how God is working to make these realities true in your life.
The beauty of this method is that anyone can do it. And in our technologically advanced world, it helps us move at the pace of Jesus so the Holy Spirit can have space to actually speak to us.
Slowing down for God
When’s the last time you slowed down enough to make space for God’s voice in your life?
Speaking of the soul, author and teacher Parker Palmer says:
“The soul is like a wild animal—tough, resilient, savvy, self-sufficient, and yet exceedingly shy. If we want to see a wild animal, the last thing we should do is to go crashing through the woods, shouting for the creature to come out. But if we are willing to walk quietly into the woods and sit silently for an hour or two at the base of a tree, the creature we are waiting for may well emerge, and out of the corner of an eye we will catch a glimpse of the precious wildness we seek.”
I would say that’s just as true for God’s voice and how he interacts with our souls.
When our methods don’t match how the voice of God is heard in our lives, no wonder we feel like God isn’t speaking to us. I’m confident God wants to speak to us through his word. The question for us is, “Are we letting him?” Above everything else, I hope this practice helps you interact with God.
Keep at it and keep growing
I strongly encourage you to practice reading Scripture using Lectio Divina. Just like with all things we learn, it may feel awkward at first. But with practice, it will begin to feel natural, and it’s a wonderful tool to have in our toolbelt for reading Scripture.
As disciples of Jesus, we want to have the mindset of a lifelong learner. We never want to stop growing and learning in our journey to live with God and become like Jesus.
“To grow in reading Scripture, we must prayerfully but boldly use our God-given imaginations as we read the stories of people who encountered God.” Dallas Willard
And then the stories can become true in our own lives.
May it be so.
