As we turn our attention to the source and means of experiencing our God-gifted free life—a conversational companionship with Him and His family—our hope over the coming weeks will be to develop the competency and confidence in that all-important skill of a shared life with God: Hearing God.

While we will discover and discuss the multifaceted nature of God's speaking to us, there is, however, one particular practice that, perhaps more than any other, matures us in assuming and discerning God's communing with us. The practice is called Lectio Divina, literally translated "divine reading."

Henri  Nouwen once said, "All the disciplines of the spiritual life are intended to help us move from an absurd (deaf) life to an obedient (listening) life of freedom,  joy, and peace." This is especially true of Lectio (as we'll refer to it). 

Lectio is a framework, guide, or structure used to help us in our often distracted lives and noisy minds, to dialogue with our Father through His word. In Lectio, we assume that God has spoken in the words written and that those words help us recognize His voice today. When incorporated into our regular rhythms, Lectio grounds our hearing in something sure (scripture) and helps tune our ears to be attentive to the living and active voice, which is the foundation of our conversational companionship throughout our everyday routines.

In regards to the practice itself, Lectio has four "movements": Read, Reflect, Respond, Rest. Each step guiding us deeper into dialogue with our Father through the scripture and Christ, who is in us via His Spirit. While Lectio can be applied to almost any passage of scripture, psalm, or story, it is best used in familiar or easily understandable texts or ones in which we have a bit of context. The purpose of the practice is dialogue through meditation and contemplation, so having to do a lot of research kind of defeats the point.

Lectio is not a new practice for our faith family. We've often used it in our Gatherings and have put together several guides for the practice. For instance, last summer, while journeying in the books of Ezekiel & John, we used Lectio to help us engage with God through Jesus' seven "I AM" statements. These would be an excellent place to start to (re)introduce yourself to the practice; or look for new guides in the weeks ahead.

Hearing God is, as Dallas Willard encourages us to remember, "more about becoming comfortable in a continuing conversation, and learning to lean constantly on the goodness and love of God, than it is about turning God into an ATM for advice, or treating the Bible as a crystal ball." Over the next couple of months, we will look at our Scriptures, our perceptions and mis-perceptions, our practices, and our intentions to help us Hear God. And, in so doing, become like Jesus, living "a life of free-hearted collaboration with Jesus and his friends in the kingdom of the heavens." If you'd like to look ahead to where we are going, we encourage you to check out the following resources, listed in order of relevance to our upcoming series. Let us know if you have any questions!