Lectio Devina

I am quite a private person. I don't like sharing too many personal things with people that I don't know very well, purely because I want to keep things about myself, to myself. Unless of course you are my family or close friend, then I won't mind. I think maybe it's a trust thing. I'll only open up if I trust you.

Anyways, as you can imagine then, starting up this blog was not as easy as you might think. My blog can be quite personal some days.I could have easily just chosen to write about new things that don't require me to divulge too much about myself, but there are just some things I don't think I really need to hide. For example, I am a practicing Catholic and so my blog post is more spiritually centred today. 

My faith is a huge part of my life and who I am. Since this blog is going to be a huge part of who I am for this year, it just doesn't feel right if I don't share with you the wonderful new things I do to try and improve my faith. 

So anyways, something else that you might not know about me is that I try to read the Bible everyday. My wonderful friend gave me a One Year Bible. Each day there is some scripture from the Old Testament, the New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs. I will normally highlight anything that stands out to me, but to be honest there are some days where I'll read the scripture and then forget what I've just read within an hour. 

At work the other day, the father or the clients that I work with asked me what I had learnt from a particular passage that we were talking about. I paused, and realised that I hadn't learnt anything because I couldn't remember anything. He later told me about the Lectio Divina, which is Latin for "Divine reading". It is a step by step instruction on how to efficiently read the Bible. It is about reading it, meditating on the word, praying to God and then contemplation which is more like a silent prayer where you listen to God's response. 

I was given a step by step instruction and used it today as I read the Bible. I found it so enlightening practicing the lectio divina. I found that the passages I read had so much more meaning. Using the lectio divina method allowed me to think deeply about what I was reading and because of this, conversation was prompted in my mind and everything that I had taken away from what the scripture was saying were teachings that would bring me closer to God. 

Reading the Bible used to just be a  quick15 minute habit, but I realise now that in order to get the most out of it, meditation and prayer also need to follow. I have found that in general, nothing worth having ever comes easy and the same applies here. I want more than anything to have God's teachings permanently in my heart so that I can go about living the way Jesus taught, but I'm not going to get there overnight. Just like everything else in life, time, effort, passion and commitment have to be put in in order to reap the rewards. 

If you also want to get more out of the Bible, I highly recommend starting with practising the lectio devina :)

The same step by step instructions that I used can be found here. 

More info here, here, here and here.