Does it really work?

For the first few years I was at St. Paul's I led a little experience where a group of four or five of us would meet for a few weeks. Each week, one of us was invited to tell three stories from our lives when we felt closest to God. I loved it!

Often, at the beginning of the class, people would say that they didn't have anything to share. But almost always, the process of hearing the stories of other people's memories would jar something loose and, sure enough, people would recover all sorts of experiences. The variety and power of the experiences always amazed me. Very often, this little class would be the first times people had ever told these stories. They were giving words to something previously hidden. They were getting back in touch with their capacity to be in intimate relationship with God.

Yesterday I was talking with a friend of St. Paul's. She is a woman with a great hunger for an intimate relationship with Jesus who knows how much I love to teach the Christian Disciplines. She asked me if I really believed that the practices I teach such as prayer, worship, service of the poor and learning the scriptures help everyone get closer to God on a more consistent basis.

I answered yes, absolutely. I believe with my whole being that if we do the things that Jesus asked us to do then we are far more likely to experience Him in a consistent, loving and intimate way. Above all, I believe and have experienced that there is nothing more helpful than regular, daily and mindful reading of scripture. That is why it is called the living word.

The book lies there, waiting for each of us to open it and begin the lifelong pilgrimage of prayerful, attentive reading. Is daily Bible reading the next step in your own path of greater intimacy with God through Jesus?