You have been spending six minutes a day praying Scripture, a very old form of prayer. Most people are surprised at how easy it is to pray this way, and how deep the prayer can be. Six minutes a day is easily within reach.
All you need is a Bible. It's best to have your own so you can underline words, write in the margin. There's something about having your own book of Scripture --familiar to your sight and touch. A good friend.
To get started, pick any of the Gospels (or the Acts of the Apostles) and start reading slowly, a little bit each day, and sense the presence of the Lord as you read. When something catches you, stop and talk to the Lord about it, and let the Lord talk to you. There's no rush to get through the text. Sometimes one or two sentences is plenty for one day. We simply let God speak to us through the words, guiding us to reflections that sometimes seem to come to us from nowhere. But they're not "from nowhere." They're from God.
[Sometimes, the Holy Spirit has prompted me to look up a word -- it is amazing how doing so opens up deeper meanings of the text I am reading.] But remember, you're not studying the Bible. You're praying. You're spending quiet time with the Lord. When you do this, you will realize that God has given you a treasure in the holy word. It's a wonderful way to pray. And it's there for the asking. (from The Little White Book: Six-minute reflections on the Resurrection Narrative according to Matthew.)
Six minutes a day is so easy -- and so rewarding. When I first began reading the Bible, I would draw a very small flower in the margin whenever I read a passage I wanted to remember -- mainly so that I could find it again. However, I could see that would not do for the long haul. So I began keeping a notebook to write down my reflections as I read. I quickly discovered that the Holy Spirit was ready to speak to me when I was ready to listen. This blog is the result of having written reflections on Scripture for many years; I quickly learned that writing on the computer is faster than writing on paper -- but I still have many journals saved from those beginning days.
Last time, I wrote about reading the Bible as a way of learning God's thoughts and His promises to us. A few weeks ago, I had to sit in a doctor's office for about three hours, waiting for a surgical procedure on my eye that I did not want to undergo. For most of the time, I was praying the 23rd Psalm: The Lord is my Shepherd. I prayed it slowly, line by line, since I had lots of time. As I prayed each line, I sank deeply into its images, making them personal to me and my situation at the moment. When I finally got into the surgical room, the doctor decided that he did not really need to do that procedure, because the eye had healed itself to the point of not needing lancing. I practically danced out of the office, singing the 23rd Psalm.
Although I recognize that praying the psalms will not always result in a miracle, my point is that Scripture links us to God in a way that nothing else can. One time, as I was reading slowly, the Holy Spirit put the thought in my mind: "look up the word 'word.' When I did so, I discovered that "word" can mean promise, provision, plan, in addition to its usual connotation of pronouncement. As I reflected on these meanings in terms of John's use of "Word" in his Gospel, I realized that Jesus Christ, as the "Word" of God, was also the promise of God, the provision of God, and the plan of God -- as well as the final pronouncement of God as to His will for us. Everything God wanted us to know is contained in His Word, in His Son. We have everything we need for salvation in the Word of God.
Six minutes a day spent in Scripture can bring us riches we never dreamed of -- and it is less time than we spend getting dressed in the morning. In fact, this six minutes will certainly "get us dressed" for heaven as well as for our lives on earth.
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