Lectio Divina
- Psalm 42
For our devotion today I’m going to invite you all into an ancient practice of Scripture meditation and prayer called Lectio Divina. If you’ve got a few minutes, I hope you’ll follow these steps along with me. This is a practice that includes five movements: Silence, listening, meditation, contemplation, and prayer.
FIRST, take thirty seconds quiet your mind and heart, prepare to receive a Word from God.
SECOND: read today’s passage. Read it out loud if possible. While you read, listen for a word or phrase that catches your attention or may be kind of calling out to you. This part is always the hardest for me but DON’T try to analyze why it caught your attention yet. Just LISTEN.
Psalm 42
For the director of music. A maskil of the Sons of Korah.
1 As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, my God.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?
3 My tears have been my food
day and night,
while people say to me all day long,
“Where is your God?”
4 These things I remember
as I pour out my soul:
how I used to go to the house of God
under the protection of the Mighty One
with shouts of joy and praise
among the festive throng.
5 Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.
6 My soul is downcast within me;
therefore I will remember you
from the land of the Jordan,
the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar.
7 Deep calls to deep
in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
have swept over me.
8 By day the Lord directs his love,
at night his song is with me—
a prayer to the God of my life.
9 I say to God my Rock,
“Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go about mourning,
oppressed by the enemy?”
10 My bones suffer mortal agony
as my foes taunt me,
saying to me all day long,
“Where is your God?”
11 Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.
After reading aloud and listening, jot down the word or phrase that caught your attention—again, you don’t have to explain why it caught your attention yet. That will come soon.
THIRD: read the passage aloud again, but this time focus in on that word or phrase that caught your attention initially—meditate on that word or phrase specifically. After you’ve read the passage answer the question: “How is your life touched by this Word?” Or maybe ask yourself, “Why does the Lord want me to hear this today, right now?”
FOURTH: read the passage one final time, considering that phrase, asking yourself the question “Is the Lord inviting me to do something as a result of hearing this Word?” After reading for the last time, write down two to four sentences that start with “I believe the Lord wants me to _________.”
FIFTH: Pray. Pray for grace, strength, and faith to respond to the invitation you received from the Lord today.
If you didn’t hear or experience anything profound in this exercise, that’s fine, thank God for his Word either way. Whenever the Word of God is read, God speaks, whether we hear something profound or not, he is drawing us into a deeper relationship with himself. So thank God for that.