Lectio Divina II

The speaker shares a personal experience from a YouTube video about the goal of Lectio Divina, which is to understand that God is not confined to the written word but is always speaking to us. In Lectio Divina, we ask what word or phrase strikes us in the passage and sit with it in prayer, allowing God to reveal its significance. The analogy of a child at a dinner table is used to explain how we learn the language of God through scripture. By sitting with the Word, we enter into an authentic relationship with God and learn to address the question of what God is saying in our daily lives. Lectio Divina is a method of prayerful pondering that helps us hear God's voice and develop a closer relationship with Jesus. Sharing the gospel is a joy because it allows us to experience God's presence in every moment and everywhere. Greetings friends, what a joy to share the Gospel. Recently a friend sent me a link to a talk on YouTube which powerfully reminded me of something so significant about Lectio Divina, something I really must share with you. It concerns specifically the goal of Lectio Divina. The young man giving the talk on the YouTube video shared his love for the Bible. He has much of his life been a student of the Bible and now teaches the Bible professionally. Not long ago he took some time away and while hiking in the mountains encountered a woman and event that blew his mind. As he insisted he had focused so much of his energy on the written word that God had become for him confined to the text. The experience in the mountains shocked him to the core and he felt God showing him that God is everywhere speaking to him. God is not confined to the written word but is always and everywhere revealing himself to us. Now as I said this reminded me of the goal of Lectio Divina. In our sharing of Lectio you will recall that we always address a question to the passage, what word or phrase or image strikes me particularly as I read and hear this passage? We then sit with that word or phrase or image. We ask what its significance might be within the text itself and for me personally. We take it to prayer asking Jesus to enlighten us. Remember too that as we close our prayer I invite us to take the word, phrase, image and place it deep in our spirits there for God to draw us back again and again to his voice, his presence. All of this we do because we know that God's Word is not confined to the page or relegated to history. God's Word is living and it speaks to us. Yes the truth of salvation history but also it speaks deeply personally to me, to you here and now. But friends and this is what that YouTube video stirred up in me. God is not confined to the written text even that of the sacred scripture. God speaks to us always and everywhere. Let me offer you a very humble analogy of what I'm trying to get at here. Praying with sacred scripture is much like a child sitting at the dinner table. Before there is language there is the sitting in the presence of language. Adults speaking back and forth, sharing life, communicating. As an infant there is only presence to this conversation, maybe not even exactly listening to the conversation. Eventually though there is intentional listening. Words begin to come slowly, simply, day after day, month after month, year after year. We as human beings learn language and even more the skills of conversation and dialogue. This is the nature of sacred scripture. There we sit at the table of the Word. We sit listening, taking it in. Eventually we respond with our own simple words expressing our simple thoughts. We are learning in our prayerful pondering, sitting with the Word, the language of God. Like the dinner table unfolding human relationship to the child, the Bible unfolds for us the conversation of God, how God speaks and how God acts. Because of our sitting at the table of the Word we learn the language of God. We enter into authentic relationship with God. You see, friends, that question we address to the scripture passage, what word, phrase, image stirs my heart, is the question we learn to address to the whole of our lives. We have, for instance, a conflict at work one day. In the midst of it we ask internally, what are you saying to me at this moment, Lord Jesus? What are you revealing to me? Or we spend the afternoon with a friend over coffee. Driving home we sense that we have experienced God's love in this time, the warmth of God's friendship. Maybe something our friend said comes back to us and we know it is more than a word from our friend. It is a word from God to us. You see, God is alive. God desires relationship with us always, everywhere. Olexio Divina is a precious method of prayerful pondering of the inspired Word of God where we learn to hear God's voice in the whole of our lives and enter into deeply intimate relationship with Jesus, the Good Shepherd. This too is the gift of sharing Olexio together, of regularly sitting with the Word of God. Through it, God himself is mediated to us, living, present, and alive in our lives every moment, everywhere. This too is why, dear friends, it is such a joy to share the gospel with you. ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪