The Lectio Courseনমুনা

Contemplate: Hearing God in all of Life

What a journey the past few days have been as we’ve explored Lectio Divina! Today, we will explore the final step, contemplatio: moving from meditation and conversation into contemplation, in which we encounter the Lord beyond the text and in the whole of life.

Lectio Divina at its worst could be a bit like a private space in which we sit around giving ourselves a sort of spiritual sugar rush, ignoring God’s call to go and exercise authority in the nations.

But at its best, Lectio sets us free. It enables us to absorb God’s Word so deeply that we begin to become God’s Word for a world that may never read the Bible. The skills we’ve been learning in sacred reading, meditation, and prayer are scalable and transferable because the more we find God in his Word, the more our eyes are opened to see him in his world. The more we hear him speak in private prayer, the more we are primed to discern his voice in the wider culture. Lectio Divina can ultimately be applied to the whole of life. Learning to meet with God in the Bible is the easy bit that trains us for the much trickier challenge of seeing him, hearing him, and worshipping him in less obviously sacred contexts.

This is precisely what we see in Acts 17 when the apostle Paul addresses the people of Athens. He’s spent his whole life studying, memorizing, and soaking in the Scriptures. And now, instead of rebuking the Athenians for their idols, he points to one dedicated "To an Unknown God" and uses this pagan symbol to point them to “The God who made the world and everything in it" who "does not live in temples built by human hands" and “gives everyone life and breath and everything else" (Acts 17:24, 25). Shockingly, he then quotes from one of their own most famous writers saying "As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’'’ (v.28)

Instead of just quoting the Bible to the Athenians, Paul is thinking Biblically, recognizing that God can speak through all things–even, in this instance, something as sinful as an idol.

Contemplation is the form of prayer that moves beyond words to simply enjoy being with the Lord, caught up in His love, completely focused on Him.

What this means in terms of Lectio Divina is that there’s a sort of progression from reading the text to meditating upon its meaning, and then from meditation to conversation in prayer, and ultimately from words into silence, from doing into being, and from prayer into worship. This requires a little lingering after praying, resisting the urge to rush off, pausing very simply to enjoy God’s loving presence.

Perhaps this sounds difficult, but it really isn’t. We all do contemplation quite naturally whenever we lose ourselves in a great movie, or a beautiful piece of music, or the hysteria of an exciting sporting event. In many ways, these moments are rumors of another world: hints that we are designed to be caught up in something greater than ourselves—that we are fundamentally, hard-wired to worship.

Over these five days together, we have realized afresh the invitation from the Lord Jesus Christ, to hear his word in the Bible and to encounter him day by day, walking with him more nearly, loving him more dearly, and hearing him more clearly. Lectio Divina isn’t some new tool or technique, but actually the most ancient invitation to interact with God’s Word prayerfully and attentively for the sake of God’s world and to do so with hearts full of worship.

This reading plan features shortened versions of The Lectio Course video sessions. To run the full course with your community and find out more, please visit 24-7 Prayer.