God's Word for us

Alright confession time...have you ever been bored reading the Bible? I know that I have. For the longest time I kept trying to read through the Bible in a year. This is what so many around me would hold up as a great spiritual accomplishment and I wanted to follow in their footsteps. But the more that I did it, the more I began to wonder why this was pushed? What after all is so spiritual about reading the Bible in one year? Sure there is the aspect of discipline, which is good. But why a year? What makes that more spiritual than me accomplishing the same thing in 3 or 4 years? To be honest with you, I became increasingly more and more frustrated about my "times" with God because I needed to maintain a pace and stay on schedule. The result of this practice was that I became well versed in hearing God's Word for everyone else but me.

Recently I was reminded of a practice that the early church used to combat hearing God's Word for others as opposed to hearing for one's self. This practice became known as "Lectio Divina" (divine or sacred reading). The movements that follow are based upon the belief that God's Word is alive today for you and for me (Heb. 4:12).

Movements (taken from Ruth Haley Barton's "Sacred Rhythms"):

1. Pick a passage of Scripture that is no more than 12 verses (if it is a story it could be longer).
2. Pray a something short and simple asking God for guidance.
3. READ- As you read the passage slowly, listen for a word or phrase that jumps out of the text and sit with it.
4. REFLECT- Read the passage again and then ask God why this is the word that He wants you to hear.
5. RESPOND- Read the passage one more time and write down your HONEST response to it (fear, excitement, guilt...). 
6. REST- Read the passage one last time and remember that the One that is showing you this word fiercely loves you. 
7. RESOLVE- This is the time where you choose to incarnate this word from God in your everyday life. Pick something to remind you of its message (a picture, symbol, something on your phone) to encourage you to continue to chew on the ways that God has been leading you.

If you do this, please let me know how it went. God wants to speak to us through His Word, the question is...are we listening for ourselves?