Today, I want to offer you a little scripture-reading practice that might help you read the text differently. We will focus on Spiritual reading. If possible, find a friend or loved one with whom you can process this with.

This scripture-reading process is called Lectio Divina, which means Divine reading. It is not magical, but it can often help your soul slow down enough to hear the Spirit of God speak through the text. For more description of this process, you can read it here:

Step 1: After praying, read the passage slowly. Ask God to highlight something for you. This isn’t magical; it’s just paying attention to a word or phrase that jumps out at you.

Step 2: Repeat the phrase to yourself. Perhaps reread the text and notice other elements that might relate to, enhance, or modify the word or phrase that jumped out to you in section one.

Step 3: Now, ask God, why did this jump out to me? Lord, is there something in my life that this phrase speaks to? Is there something you want me to do? Take a few minutes to pray and listen to

Step 4: Rest in God’s presence and in what He has spoken to you. It may be profound, or you may still be wrestling, but take a moment to experience God with you. As you leave this time, return to the meditation you had throughout your day, if possible. If God has asked you to do something, plan to obey. Greater insight into scripture always comes from obedience.

John 5:1 Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. 2 Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. 3 Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. 5 One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

John 5:7 “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

John 5:8 Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”
9 At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.