How do you read a letter that someone you love gives you? Do you read it with excitement or dread? Does your heart beat fast or is it just a normal paper you read?
I’m guessing you read it with passion and excitement, as do I….
I absolutely love reading letters someone I love gives me.
The Lord has opened my eyes up to seeing him as my lover in this season in my life. And he has and is captivating me from all angles. It is a very different perspective of God that I have never considered in such an intimate way. Jesus meets with me every day in such an intimate way. Sometimes he holds me, sometimes he dances with me, sometimes he challenges me, sometimes he talks to me, sometimes he just sits with me without any conversation, sometimes he laughs with me, sometimes he penetrates my heart with my deepest hearts desires at the moment, sometimes he sits with me in my mess and sadness, sometimes he celebrates with me, sometimes he whispers sweet nothings into my ear and it pierces my heart with pure love, sometimes he wants to hear what I’m doing, sometimes he tells me his heart.
I have been reading this book called Sacred Rhythms. This book is changing my perspective of different biblical disciplines. I needed a change up in the way I viewed these disciplines. The first chapter is about naming your desires in God’s presence which is something I am still working on. The second chapter is being in solitude with God which is a place you can name your desires in God’s presence. The third chapter is about Scripture.
I’m going to take some time to explain what I have learned through this chapter. The word of God can be read in so many ways. I believe that have experienced how it is a living breath of God that is truth being poured out and used every day. But I have looked at it in different ways than that. I have read it as a textbook, as a checklist to get done for the day, as wanting God to be a genie in a bottle. I have also read the Bible in ways like; wanting to find hope, desperate for God, scripture for other people, etc. There are so many ways how and reasons why we read the bible.
In the book the lady realized that it got to a point where she got in a pattern of using the Scriptures as a tool to accomplish utilitarian purposes rather than experiencing them primarily as a place of intimacy with God for her own soul’s sake. It was becoming a place of human striving and intellectual hard work.
I realized that it didn’t necessarily become a place of striving, but something was blocking me from fully seeing the scriptures the way that they should be. Something was off because it has always been hard for me to get into reading my bible at certain times. God showed me a root of why I saw Scripture the way I did. He showed me that I have seen people use it in a wrong way as to use it for their own success or gain, to manipulate, etc. And at that moment, the Lord broke that root or rather tore it out and I am able to see clearer.
In this book I’m reading, the lady points out how the bible is a love letter to us. I have heard that before but the way she explains it is beautiful. She explains how each of us has a craving in our souls for such a deep love. That we can approach reading the scriptures driven by the longing for a lover. To read the word in a deeper level of our soul with paying attention to our inner dynamics. She ends up explaining this rhythmic dance with moves (strategy) of how to read scripture while inviting God to speak to you in reflection and in silence. This is called Lectio Divina. I love it and it works for me. It has changed my perspective on how I see and read the scripture even though I am still in the process of being able to always read it from that perspective.
