Read.Think.Pray.Live.

The first time I heard the word Lectio Divina is when I went for Camp Cameron in May 2010. The word can be summaries as ‘spiritual reading’. It is intended to promote communion with God and to increase in the knowledge of God's Word. If you say that reading the Bible is boring, static and out dated – I’m fully understand that. If you say that it is fun, inspiring, refreshing and ‘I can hear God is speaking to me through’ – You're right. Both can be true. It depends on whether we want to ‘squeeze the lemon and get the maximum amount of juice’ out of it or just cut ‘the lemon and let the juice flow’. (That's a bad metaphor don't you think so?) 

If you have the desire to experience the Bible, here are 4 basic components that make up Lectio where you can read the Bible for all its worth.


Read
What is so special about the Word of God is that it reads us even as we read it. The people of the Bible are a lot like you and me, and a lot of them are far from perfect. For example when we read about Peter’s failures, we can identify with that. This is a basic component: read.

Think
Think about what the Bible is saying. Don’t read it in a flash and closed it fast. Some people read their sacred book without understanding it. What’s the use? Read it slowly and if any particular passage speaks to you, let it flow and meditate on it. When I read on the Letter to Colossians, I stuck with the verse, ‘Whatever you do, do it with all your heart, as though you’re working unto God not unto men.’ for 1 month! Spend days and weeks or even months meditating on what a particular passage is really talking about – reflecting on it, soaking it in.
‘…he meditates day and night.’ (Psalms 1:2)


Pray
Ask God to show you more about what you’ve just read. Pray always for His guidance. Have a conversation with God. He is not that far away from you. He wants to do that with you.
The Message editors write, ‘You may want to pray about a passage more than once – in fact, that’s a good thing. You may want to pray with different focus at different times – talking to God about what you’re learning, thanking Him for the truth in the passage, asking God questions, asking Him to show you how to make the words real in your life, asking forgiveness for what you see in yourself after reading, just listening…’ I add: pray whatever comes into your mind!


Live
If you read what God has written, think about it, pray through it, but don’t allow it to change you, you’re missing a big point. James 1:22-25,
“Keep on being doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at himself in a mirror. For he studies himself carefully and then goes off and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the one who looks at the perfect law of freedom and remains committed to it-thus proving that he is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of what it requires-will be blessed in what he does.”
When you live the Word, you truly live!

Remember; THINK BIG the Bible is ‘Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth’. START SMALL by investing your time for reading and thinking through His Word every day. GO DEEP by continue praying and live the Word.

....
Read.Think.Pray.Live. is inspired from The Message by Eugene H. Peterson's introduction.  
Credits to the editors team.

....