Step 6: Sacred Reading

What's at the heart of any relationship? There are a lot of right answers, but 'communication' has to be at the top of the list. In prayer, we communicate with God. And God speaks to us by the Holy Spirit.

But how do we discern the difference between a crazy idea I had and something God says? It's important not to confuse these! If we try to "live by the power of the Holy Spirit" but we never read the Bible, we might start to give divine authority to our desires.

So what's the answer? We need to listen to God speak to us through the Scriptures.

Unfortunately, we've often picked up other ideas about what the Bible is for. Sometimes we might read the Bible to get more ammo to justify what we've already decided to do. Or reading the Bible can feel like a chore—something we do to check off our spiritual to-do list. We may feel pressure to memorize Scripture, learn Greek, or read several chapters daily.

Still, we need the Scriptures. But how do we benefit from God's word?

**By approaching the Bible as a source of nourishment for our souls.**

In Eat This Book, Eugene Peterson writes: "What I mean to insist upon is that spiritual writing—Spirit-sourced writing—requires spiritual reading, a reading that honors words as holy, words as a basic means of forming an intricate web of relationships between God and the human, between all things visible and invisible."

To attend to the Scriptures is to commune with the Trinity. It is a holy occasion to be impressed with God and to be transformed by him.

So how do we experience God's word as nourishment, rather than as a slogging duty? Instead of treating the Bible like a spiritual performance, we need sacred reading.

This is a way of approaching Scripture that developed over centuries in the church. Sacred reading involves four stages:

• **Lectio (reading):** Reverently read a small passage of Scripture many times without trying to accomplish anything other than taking in its grandeur.
• **Meditatio (reflection):** Rather than monitoring our performance, we savor the feast of God's word. We meditate on what we have heard.
• **Oratio (response):** As God's word goes into the depths of our being, we respond with words of praise to God, straight from our hearts.
• **Contemplatio (rest):** We enjoy God. All our hurried strivings to be someone or do something great are met with Jesus' words, "Peace, be still!" We realize we are beloved.

Sacred reading can be done alone or in community. We don't have to be experts in theology to experience the Bible as nourishment for our souls.

I invite you to approach the Bible with a sense of wonder and awe rather than accomplishment and performance. When the Scriptures have filled you, changed you, and brought you close to God, you benefit from your time in God's word.

**Our sixth step to God is to be strengthened by the Bible.**