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Listening to God in Prayer: A New Approach to the Bible

Lynne Baab • Saturday January 6 2018

Listening to God in Prayer: A New Approach to the Bible

When we think of reading the Bible, many of us think about how we wish we could take more time for serious Bible study. Many of us were nurtured in our Christian faith through intensive Bible study. In Bible study groups, we analyzed Biblical passages and thought hard about how to apply the passages in our lives. We expected God to speak to us through our study and analysis. Maybe we also memorized verses of Scripture, trying to store God’s word in our heart.

All of this is good, and all of this has been a major part of my Christian journey. The contemplative approach to the Bible takes these patterns of Bible study a step further. We embrace disciplines that can help us to hear God’s voice through the Scriptures.

First and foremost, the contemplative pattern of interacting with the Scriptures is a pattern of meditation on a biblical passage: spending time allowing the Word to sink deep into our souls, letting the Truth penetrate our whole being. The groundwork laid by intensive Bible study and Scripture memory can be very helpful, but we are invited to go a step further, to spend time quietly living with a passage of Scripture.

Meditation on the Scriptures has a long history in both Jewish and Christian tradition. In recent centuries, with our emphasis on science and objective truth, we have neglected meditation in favor of analysis and cognitive understanding.

Midlife is an excellent time to return to the ancient pattern of meditation upon Scripture. Receptive, quiet reflection on a Biblical passage can help us address many of the issues of midlife: enabling us to hear God’s voice of guidance and acceptance, helping us let go of the illusion of control, giving us the opportunity to slow down and quiet the many voices that surround us.

The writer of Psalm 1 was well acquainted with this slow, quiet absorption with the Scriptures. Here is a description of those who obey God: “Their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night” (Psalm 1:2).

Best-selling writer Richard Foster writes that examples of the contemplative tradition abound in the Bible: “From the Psalmist, who meditated upon God’s character, law, and creation, to Mary, the mother of Jesus, who pondered all things in her heart; from Elijah, who kept a lonely vigil over earthquake, wind and fire, to Mary of Bethany, who chose to sit at Jesus’ feet.” [1] 

When we spend time with a passage from the Bible, pondering in our hearts the way God works and asking God to speak to us, we are entering into this long Christian tradition of contemplation and meditation. When we sit at Jesus’ feet by reading about him in one of the Gospels and living with that story for a while, expecting Jesus to be present in our thoughts and prayers, we are entering into contemplation and meditation. When we walk through our neighborhood, thinking about a Scripture we know by heart or weighing the issues discussed in a recent Bible study, we are engaging in Christian meditation.

All these activities require a commitment to slow down and allow space to ponder the work of God and to listen for God’s word to us this day. In our busy and rushed world, making time for reflection will probably be the greatest challenge facing us if we want to move towards contemplative prayer and meditation.

In addition, we may experience the challenge of not knowing how to start. Three long-standing patterns of engagement with the Scriptures can provide a structure for a meditative approach to the Bible: lectio divina (sacred reading), Ignatian prayer, and praying the psalms. In the next three posts, I’ll write about each of these three.

If you’d like to make a start, pick something from the Bible that you know by heart, perhaps all or part of Psalm 23 or the Lord’s Prayer. This week, as you lay in bed at night, wait at stop lights, stand in line at the grocery store, or wait for someone to show up, go back over and over to those words. Ponder them, and let God speak to you through them.

(Next week: the ancient prayer form lectio divina. Illustration: Princess Di Garden, Cambridge, UK, by Dave Baab. If you’d like to receive an email when I post on this blog, sign up under “Subscribe” in the right hand column. This post is adapted from my book A Renewed Spirituality: Finding Fresh Paths at Midlife.)

Some past Christmas and New Year’s posts you might enjoy:

[1] Richard Foster, Streams of Living Water (New York: Harper San Francisco, 1998), page 49.



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