An Invitation to Listen to God
Here at Intentionally Ordinary we believe in the importance of caring for your soul. It might sound daunting, but I promise it’s not another thing to add to your to do list. Rather, nourishing your soul is about learning together and taking one small step at a time. Soul care includes slowing down, observation, awareness and listening.
In my first blog post, Intentional Attention we explored paying attention as an act of love. In my second blog post, Reflection: a Spiritual Practice for your Soul, we looked at paying attention to your life as a way of loving and caring for your soul. Hopefully, you are beginning to see the importance of paying attention as a way of soul care — paying attention to what I give my attention to and paying attention to my life and what is happening in it.
I want to encourage us to be intentional in strengthening our listening skills as a way of paying attention. Each day, each moment, choosing to be intentional about listening as a way of caring for our souls.
Today I would like to share with you a way of paying greater attention to what we read in the Bible. This way of engaging with scripture is known as Lectio Divina. Lectio Divina is Latin for “divine reading.” I think it sounds really fancy but in fact it is simply a way of slowing down and paying attention to scripture as a way of listening to God. I like to think of it as a way that helps me pay attention at a soul level.
Before we begin, I just want to remind you that paying attention in our scripture reading happens in many different ways and that Lectio is just a tool to help us in that endeavor. It is a rhythm that has been nourishment for my soul, and I hope it will be the same for yours.
Pick a portion of scripture to read and meditate on. It can be anything, but I recommend something that is either already familiar to you or a portion that makes sense to read in a chunk (2-5 verses). After picking my reading, I like to take time to pray and prepare my heart and mind to receive from God.
The rhythm of Lectio is to read, reflect, respond, rest:
Read your chosen portion of scripture.
Pick out a word or phrase that stood out to you and reflect (meditate) on that.
Read your chosen portion a second time and offer a prayer to God regarding the word or phrase that stands out to you.
Read your portion a third time and then rest (contemplate) and consider what is God’s personal invitation to you from the Scripture or simply spend some time in quiet rest, enjoying peace and calm.
If you like to journal, this is a great time to write down what you learned during the exercise. Recently, I Lectio-ed my way through the book of Romans and it was so fun and interesting to read my notes when I was done. This was a process that was slow (several months) and intentional and nourishing to my soul. I loved it so much that now I am popping over to the book of Philippians!
If you want more information or more direction, here is a link to a Lectio Divina guide with over 50 Scripture portions along with guided questions and prompts.
Here’s to listening well on our journey!