Thank you for being a part of this journey to lean into such a weird time as this, to listen, to feel, to hear what God is saying. Thank you for accepting the invitation to redeem this weird time that we find ourselves in, to build a dependence on God’s Word that would have otherwise not happened, a dependence that will be with us long after the worldwide Covid-19 fever breaks.
You can find many approaches and methods to experience Scripture in a deeper, more meaningful way. I’ve found that in all the approaches, and over the centuries of Bible scholarship, every high-impact approach has, in some form, three basic steps at its core: observe, interpret, apply. In my personal and ministry journey, I have distilled these steps to three requests which not only help me explore and apply a passage, but also help me to be meditative in my time in God’s Word.
- God, show me! (observe)
- God, teach me! (interpret)
- God, change me! (apply)
So, for Gentle Exercise 4, we will look at the first of these three steps: “God, show me!” Steps two and three will be covered in the next two exercises. Here’s the thing. People get Ph. D.s in this process of observation, interpretation, application (which is known in seminary hallways as exegesis and hermeneutics; it’s known more popularly as inductive Bible study). We, on the other hand, will be spending just a few minutes on each step. But hopefully it’s enough time to move your Bible engagement into a more meaningful experience. You’ll find the link to the exercise below!
Prayers!
Barry Shafer
barry@inword.org
Gentle Exercise 4: “God, Show Me!”
Get all the gentle exercises, so far, here.