DEVO your Bible

You’ve probably heard this saying about Bible reading: “A chapter a day keeps the devil away.”

Well, if you tried that and got stuck in the Old Testament genealogies with all their “begats,” you know that’s not true. Not that you can’t find some fascinating truths in those lists! One of my former Bible school profs, Bruce Wilkinson, became famous for a book on the “begat” that produced “Jabez,” a poor fellow whose name means “pain.”

But if you’re trying to read the Bible and it sometimes seems like you’re checking off a list of what you ought to do, but it’s not getting through to you, take heart.

It was in Bruce Wilkinson’s class on Bible study methods long ago (1977, if you really want to know) that I did a paper advocating a devotional methodology with the acrostic DEVO (the first four letters of “devotions,” if you didn’t notice). I still have the paper I did on it. (Yes, he gave me an A+.) Since then, I’ve had articles based on DEVO published in about a dozen magazines.

Though I didn’t know it then (hey, I’m slow), the Bible reading approach that worked for me is much like that from ancient church history, called Lectio Divina (“divine reading”). Basically, that involves reading a passage aloud several times and thinking it through (lectio), reflecting on the text (meditatio), praying a response back to God (oratio), and resting in God’s presence (contemplatio).

Here’s the DEVO approach—preceded by prayer that God will open your heart to understand:
DELIGHT in it. The passage you choose from scripture need not be long. Savor it as you read it, as you might stretch out a bowl of your favorite ice cream with tiny spoonfuls. The famed preacher Charles Spurgeon once remarked, “I would rather lay my soul asoak in half a dozen verses [of the Bible] all day than rinse my hand in several chapters.” You might feel “fed” in a chapter, or a paragraph or even a verse or two.

ENGRAVE it. Long ago before computers there were clay tablets in which scribes twisted sticks to make crude letters. Zoom into 21st century with pens and pencils and highlighters. Interact with something you write down. You may choose to write insights in a journal or write right in your Bible. As a kid, influenced by grade school rules that said NO WRITING IN TEXTBOOKS, I had the cleanest Bible around. Then my life intersected with a godly older woman who personalized her Bible by starring verses, writing dates by them, circling key words, drawing lines between similar words or passages, adding notes from sermons….you get the idea. She wasn’t checking off a reading schedule. She was interacting with the passage.

VERSE it. Go back and choose a key verse of that day’s passage. Decide how it spoke to you. Did it encourage you? Chastise you? Remind you of something to do? Do you need to put it in a bank? (The memory bank, that is.) Keep a supply of 3x5 cards in the back of your Bible to write out those special-to-you verses. Start reading them repeatedly until they become part of your memory.

OBEY it. Close your Bible-reading time with prayer. If the passage prompted a prayer for yourself regarding an area of your life which hasn’t been on board with God, confess it, and ask for help to change. If it reminded you of another person’s need, pray about that. The other morning I was in Isaiah 40. Oh my! That chapter is PACKED with good things. When I read it, it’s like the days we have storms blowing through. There’s sunlight, and then storm, then the sun peeks through again. Here, there’s judgment and hope, hardness and tenderness. I stopped at verse 11:
He tends his flock like a shepherd, He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.

A lot of things came to mind—for one, how that passage inspired a magnificent solo in Handel’s Messiah. I thought of the Shepherd Psalm (Psalm 23) and Jesus’ declaration that HE is the good shepherd (John 10). One of my read-again-and-again Christian books is Phillip Keller’s A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23. As a shepherd he brought wonderful insights into each verse.
But mostly I thought of a mom with three college-age kids, left alone after a divorce. I closed my eyes and pictured Jesus picking her up in her trials and sadness, and then scooping up her lambs (yes, as teens/young adults they’re still “lambs”) in one big, comforting hug. I prayed that she would know how close to His heart she really is.

Does that make sense for you? Does it help you? I’ve often shared DEVO when speaking at women’s retreats, where my feedback is always positive. Feel free to give me some feedback, too. Below these blogs there’s always a place to do so.

P.S. I’ve noticed some “followers” from Malaysia. Welcome! At Wheaton Graduate School about 1980 I had a roommate from Malaysia. I still have the “Star of David” pin she bought for me on a Holy Land tour and I’ve wondered through the years what she is doing. I believe her name was Jeanette.