bible

Spiritual toolbox part 7: the Daily Audio Bible

| Ester

How hard can it be to stick to my inspirational Bible reading everyday! No time, too tired, no patience, bad concentration, ‘naah, I don’t want to read the line of descendants, or Leviticus: it’s all too tedious!’ and the biggest deception: I can live my life in my own strength, I don’t really need this old book anyway…

Since 2006, I have been listening to the Daily Audio Bible (DAB) on the internet or on my mp3-player or iPod. Lying in bed, listening to Brian Hardin reading the Bible to me, with his slightly husky, friendly and soothing voice to a backdrop of calming meditational music and adding great little devotionals at the end of each podcast.

I witnessed the DAB growing from being one guy behind a mic with a few hundred listeners, to a movement of faith, community and mission with the daily Scripture reading in its epicenter.
Currently there are DAB podcasts in English, Hindi, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish…DAB podcast for kids (English) and DAB Proverbs.
So many lives are being touched continuously and increasingly by the Word of God. Prayer is going around the world around the clock via ‘the Windfarm‘, the prayer and worship network of DAB (with a radio channel).
The internet forums are lively and crowded with people from all over the world, every nation, every tongue praying for each other, giving out encouragement and hope, spreading the gospel to one another, being family.

God is using the internet and new technologies for His glory. Brian just obeyed, when God told him in 2005 to go podcast the Bible.

Daily Audio Bible and its community have meant so much in my life, but suddenly, 1,5 years ago I stopped listening and my faith life had reached a very dry season. I withdrew slowly from Jesus and my life became increasingly self-destructive and painful. Something had to change.
A few months ago I started praying again and reading some snippets of the Bible, it was a good start…

A few weeks ago I got an email from an American DAB family member asking me to organize a DAB family get-together at Schiphol Airport Amsterdam (where I live), because Brian and his awesome wife Jill would be having a lay-over before returning to their home in the US, as well as Mike and Jason from the mission’s team. They were just returning from a mission in Africa.

And so it happened. It was a truly warm and inspirational and loving encounter with the DAB leader Brian and I also loved meeting awesome sister Jill for the first time. She is an amazing singer (Jill Parr – Me again) and her lyrics have helped me through many times.
Humble, loving, caring and sweet I found the both of them.

Family members from all across Europe flew in or drove by: from Scotland, England, Germany and the Netherlands.
Instantaneous connection took place, hugs were exchanged.

It was short but sweet!

I am so happy to be part of this community (again)! Yesterday I recommitted to listening to the DAB podcast. I was walking with my dog along a typical Dutch landscape: water, windmills (Windfarm!) and grass, with a backdrop of a fiery, passionately red sunsetting glow spun out across the sky.
I felt the Holy Spirit really living in me and moving me once again, washing over me and rekindling in me the love of Jesus and His living Word.

You won’t regret it if you’ll give it a try to listen.
Go to www.dailyaudiobible.com

‘After a week you’ll notice something shifting inside. After a month you’ll WANT to be in the Bible. After a year you won’t look in the mirror and see the same person. You will have been changed from the inside out.’

Please leave a question or comment below, suscribe to this blog via email or rss, or forward a link to this blog to people who might like it. Thanks so much! God bless.

Spiritual toolbox part 5: Lectio Divina meditation

| Ester
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c359/parnassus/Bible.jpg

Lectio Divina

What is it?
The first time I heard about Lectio Divina was two years ago on a silent retreat. I read this book by Anselm Gruen: ‘Bronnen van spiritualiteit’ (sources of spirituality) which handled the topic of this ancient Benedictine meditation practice.

Daily life in a Benedictine monastery consisted of three elements: liturgical prayer, manual labor and Lectio Divina: a quiet prayerful reading of the Bible. This slow and thoughtful reading of Scripture, and the ensuing pondering of its meaning, is their meditation. This spiritual practice is called “divine reading”, “sacred reading”, or lectio divina

Lectio Divina has been likened to “Feasting on the Word.” The four parts are

  1. first taking a bite (Lectio),
  2. then chewing on it (Meditatio).
  3. next is the opportunity to savor the essence of it (Oratio).
  4. finally, the Word is digested and made a part of the body (Contemplatio).

What do you need?

  • the decision to take some time out of your day every day, for example 20 to 30 minutes.
  • a candle, an image or an icon of Christ or a Bible to look at
  • a dedicated space to sit down comfortably
  • a passage from the Bible
  • pen and paper

How to do it?
Preparation

  • Sit somewhere comfortable (like on a pillow) and breathe slowly.
  • Close your eyes or keep them open. Do whatever gives you the least distraction.
  • Be silent.
  • Be present to God/Jesus and focused on Him alone. If you experience thoughts, imagine throwing them in a stream of water and letting them float along.
  • Accept all your present emotions: stress, restlessness… They are present. Accept them and they will lessen.
  • Greet God, thank Him that He loves you. Open your heart to Him. Trust that He wants to be with you too.

Meditation


Lectio (reading)

  • Read a small passage from the Bible out loud.

Meditatio (reflection)

  • Start pondering a word (or a few words) from the text that particularly speaks to you. Chew and re-chew it so that it can do something to you. It is more important that the word is doing something to us than that we do something to the word. Let the word sink into your heart.

Oratio (response)

  • Every time you are distracted, you speak the word in order to let it bring you back into silence. Then be silent. Be focused on Him, be present in the moment, you don’t have to do anything. Let your heart speak to God.

Contemplatio (rest)

  • Let go of your own ideas and plans. And you can go deeper: let go of your holy words and thoughts. Simply rest in the Word of God. Listen at the deepest level to God who speaks within you with a still, small voice.

Conclusion
Conclude with a simple prayer of thanksgiving, greeting or signing yourself with a cross: in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Of course all of this takes practice. I personally find it really hard to take the very first step to find the rest to actually sit down and be quiet. I often feel a fear of failure or an urge to be busy. I ask God to help me with this and to grow in intimacy with Him despite my own thoughts and feelings.

What are your experiences in Christian meditation? Please feel free to share in the comments or on Twitter.

Sources:

  1. wikipedia.org
  2. ‘Nieuwe wegen, oude bronnen’ by Victor van Heusden (‘New paths, old sources)
  3. United Church of Christ

Spiritual toolbox part 4: Journaling

| Ester

Joshua 4:4-7 (New International Version)

4 “So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, 5 and said to them, “Go over before the ark of the LORD your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, 6 to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ 7 tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.”

Life goes fast. We blow by it everyday. Faster paced all the time. Hurry hurry move on!
‘God where are you? I can’t see you, I can’t hear you!’, we say.
Rush rush, strive, work…

Today I’m proposing a tool to remember, to build stones to remember what the Lord has done in your life. Building rocks by journaling.
First and foremost I am telling it to myself, because I fell off the journaling-wagon two months ago, and I know how it used to help me in the past to feel connected to God and to remember everything he has done in my life by looking back in my old journals whenever I doubted or lost hope.
That’s why I challenge myself and you to pick it up again.

What kind of journaling-tools do I have?

For 2010 I bought myself a nifty Moleskine journal with an elastic strap. In addition I use an easily flowing pen: the ‘uniball eye’ which is also waterproof/fadeproof.

What kind of entries do I make?

Here are some examples:

  • pieces of Scripture to speak to me
  • dreams
  • sense of direction from God: events that trigger me, seem to be led by Him. (It’s nice to review these regularly to see God’s plan for my life, or in this year)
  • prayer requests and answers to prayer
  • questions, struggles
  • quotes from people I meet or spiritual authors
  • everyday events I cherish
  • prayers
  • thanksgiving
  • praise to God
  • pictures
  • newspaper article-snippets
  • poems/songs
  • printed blog posts
  • excerpts of sermons
  • pieces of forumposts with prayer requests or faith related questions with their answers.

My journal looks like a hogdepodge of cut and pasted little notes from my notebook (since my journal is too big to carry around with me and my notepad isn’t). That’s where the elastic strap comes in handy to bind it together neatly.

How to make a habit of journaling?

Make an entry every day for 30 days and tick it off on a little calendar to hold yourself accountable.
What’s my challenge?
I’m going to write in my journal every day from 1st of May to 1st of June 2010 and check my progress every day.
What’s my goal?
To become closer to God again, more attuned to Him and better able to discern his will for my life. Another goal is to collect beautiful stuff from my walking with God for the dry ‘wilderness’ times.

Do you have any experience with journaling?

If so, do share it with me in the comments or on twitter.
And please ask now and then how I’m doing journaling-wise!