Read

Lectio Divina is simply the practice of listening to Scripture read aloud several times and then noticing what the Holy Spirit may prompt within you. This is not about perfectly understanding a text, but rather: how might God be speaking to you through the text?

Begin by sitting comfortably, either sitting or feel free to lay down. Stretch out any tension you may feel. Relax your jaw…neck…belly…take a few breaths.

Now try to set aside any agenda you bring to this time and entrust all the things swirling in your head to God. Ask for the grace to be open.

Read (lectio)

Begin by slowly and meditatively reading out loud or listening to your Scripture passage. Listen for a particular word or phrase that speaks to you at this moment and sit with it for a time. What word sort of sparkles in this moment?

Every good gift, every perfect gift, comes from above. These gifts come down from the Father, the creator of the heavenly lights, in whose character there is no change at all. He chose to give us birth by his true word, and here is the result: we are like the first crop from the harvest of everything he created.

Know this, my dear brothers and sisters: everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to grow angry. This is because an angry person doesn’t produce God’s righteousness. Therefore, with humility, set aside all moral filth and the growth of wickedness, and welcome the word planted deep inside you—the very word that is able to save you.

You must be doers of the word and not only hearers who mislead themselves. Those who hear but don’t do the word are like those who look at their faces in a mirror. They look at themselves, walk away, and immediately forget what they were like. But there are those who study the perfect law, the law of freedom, and continue to do it. They don’t listen and then forget, but they put it into practice in their lives. They will be blessed in whatever they do.

If those who claim devotion to God don’t control what they say, they mislead themselves. Their devotion is worthless. True devotion, the kind that is pure and faultless before God the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their difficulties and to keep the world from contaminating us. -James 1:17-27

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Meditate (meditatio) - Read or listen to the same passage a second time. As you re-engage the text, allow the word or phrase to wash over you like a wave….and sink into your thoughts and feelings. Let your word or phrase act as an invitation to converse with God.

Pray (oratio) - Read the text a third time. What might God be saying to you? What do you want to say back? Name your feelings. If you want, journal or draw a little bit.

Contemplate (contemplatio)

Read the text one final time through. As you do, release the word or phrase back to God. Perhaps look back through what you wrote or drew. Be still and rest in God’s name for you—Beloved. Be curious if you feel prompted to some kind of next step.

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Click here to learn more about Lectio Divina

Listen

Consider listening to this meditative podcast by Contemplative at Home which leads us into a place ready to rest in God's good love.

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Click to listen to the podcast

Song

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This new song by The Porter's Gate is beautiful in its hopeful simplicity. Give it a prayerful listen. Which lines resonate for you?

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Bind Us Together • The Porte... Bind Us Together • The Porte... PREVIEW   ​

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Pray

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And, finally, perhaps pray this authentic prayer about rest, written by Kate Bowler. Notice how it feels in your body to pray these words.

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for learning to rest

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It's not like I didn't know.

My body knows it too.

Rest.

You promised us rest.

Rest beyond relaxation, recreation,

or the sleep of exhaustion.

Rest that is grounded in the knowledge

that we were never designed to carry it all.

Never meant to be the command center

of the cosmos.

Never meant to solve everything,

fix everything,

nor even be left to our own devices

one whole day.

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No. As we stop, we feel our own beginning.

That little sigh.

We are made to rest.

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Lord, put your hand in mine.

Lead me to that moment of pause

like we are settling into a park bench.

There.

Here we are.

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You created this unfinished world

with my unfinishedness in mind.

Write all my errands in the dirt

beside my feet

and let the wind chase them away.

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Here we are in another limited day,

hemmed in by the inevitable panic

of minutes and hours.

So let's pause, shall we?

What a thing you've done.

Bringing me here to steal

moments together.

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Grace and Peace,

Katrina & Darren