We just finished up the first week of our Lectio Divina Lenten prayer group.
This week we meditated on Psalm 139. This psalm includes the very familiar verse, “You knit me in my mother’s womb. I praise you, because I am wonderfully made.”
Sometimes when a verse or story is so familiar, I worry that I won’t be able to gather anything new from praying with it. But that always proves to be an unfounded worry.
The first thing I noted as I read through this psalm was that I felt comforted by the words of the psalmist.
The words are showing us that God truly knows us. God is always attentive and truly sees us for what we are. “My very self you know. My bones are not hidden from you,” he says in verse 14 and 15.
Even those places that are hidden from the world are not hidden from Him. And that can be a comfort for someone like me who struggles to open up to others. Our Father knows all! It is good to know that, even though He knows us fully and intimately, He still loves us.
As a reread the passage, several similar phrases jumped out at me, all including the word “hand.”
Both verses referenced God’s hand: verse 5, “you rest your hand upon me” and verse 10, “your hand guides me, your right hand holds me fast.” His hand rests, guides and holds fast.
The Fatherly presence of God is always upon us. He is continually at our side and showing us the way. His guiding hand reaches out to us, ready to help us and to hold us close. He is a good and perfect Father.
Lastly, I was struck by verse 16: “my days were shaped, before one came to be.”
As I prayed on this I began to understand that in God’s economy, nothing is wasted.
He knows all the trials we will go through. He knows what our struggles will be. But He is an all-loving Father, and He would not allow us to go through difficulty unless it was for good. He will not allow pain to be wasted, but has a purpose for everything we encounter.
What I found particularly interesting about reading this psalm this week is that it was such a gift to me as I worked on another project. The ideas that came up for me during prayer allowed me to piece together some other ideas that were floating around in my head.
And finally, just because God is so good – in order to affirm me in my prayer, He reached out to me through a homily, during which the priest repeated the idea of God’s helping hand reaching out to us.
As I got together with the prayer groups, each participant had a different take-away from the week.
Different verses appealed to their hearts and they each sensed God saying something to them that was unique and personal. Truly I learned this week, “The Word of God is living and effective…able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart” (Heb 4:12).
Did you try out Lectio Divina this week? Did you spend some time with this passage? What words and phrases spoke to your heart? What did you sense God was speaking to you?
If you didn’t get a chance to try it this week, consider giving it a try this week. We are working on Matthew 17:1-13, The Transfiguration. I encourage you to give it a try.
If you’d like to grab a PDF explaining Lectio Divina, you can get it here! And if you’d like to read a little bit more about how God speaks to me in prayer, check out this post.
