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Conversational Reading
Conversational Reading
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. Everyone knows it’s there, so let’s get it out in the open. It’s hard to have a relationship with God because He doesn’t talk back, at least not in the typical sense. Relating to God is different from relating to our friends and family members because there isn’t much conversational give and take. Usually, we’re listening to God speak to us through His Word for a while or we’re praying to Him for a while. Rather than a conversation, it can feel like two separate, unrelated monologues. If this isn’t a problem for you, that’s wonderful! This article is not a criticism of our typical approach of reading for a while, then praying for a while or vice versa. However, there is a way to make our relationship to God more interactive and more like genuine conversation. I call it conversational reading.
Here’s how it works. Instead of reading big chunks of the Bible, then praying about unrelated things, conversational reading interacts with the text in the moment. Let’s say we’re reading the Sermon on the Mount and Matthew 5:3 reads, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Conversational reading recognizes God has just spoken to us! He just said something of great importance, so we’re going to stop and react in prayer to what God said. After reading Matthew 5:3, we might pray, “God thank you for your grace to even consider me blessed. Help me be poor in spirit. I’ve noticed times when I’m full of myself, when I look down on others like the Pharisees did. There have been times when I’ve acted like I could live just fine without You, but that’s so foolish and arrogant, please forgive me. Please humble me and bring me to my knees because of my sin, and please allow me to be blessed in Christ so I can inherit heaven.” Now God has spoken, and we’ve spoken back in response. Then we can pick up in the next verse: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” God has spoken. We might say in return, “Father I don’t take sin seriously enough sometimes. Teach me to mourn over it the way You do. Teach me to have the same hatred toward sin that You have. Help me not to get sucked in to the world’s way of thinking that sin is just ‘normal.’ I praise You God for being so different from this world and for helping me see how to think Your thoughts and feel the way You feel about this life.”
We can this approach with any verse or passage in the Bible. It encourages connection with God, it forces us to slow down and meditate on what we’ve just read, Bible reading feels less like a homework assignment and more like genuine listening, and it gives us guidance about what to pray. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go have a conversation with the Lord.
