Lectio 365: Daily Bible Prayer

I love this app! It is a great on ramp for my prayer times. There have been multiple times when the scripture passage or theme is exactly what I needed in the moment. God is definitely using this for good! I particularly love praying the Lord’s Prayer during midday and that there is an emphasis on obeying and applying the scriptures but in a very inviting way. One suggestion I have is to create a way to keep the music playing while the devo is paused. I find the background music helpful to stay focused because I have a very scattered mind. However, the pauses in the devo aren’t quite long enough for me to pray the invitation so I need to pause it. To solve the problem I’ve just been putting my own soaking music in the background to help me stay focused but it would be nice if there was a way to do that in the app. Also, I appreciate all the creators and guests. Perhaps it’s because I haven’t been using it very long, but I do wish we had more diversity in the authors and guides of the devos. Hearing from a brother or sister in a very different context and culture from my own (white American) is so very edifying and powerful. I hope there will be more voices from the global church in the future.

I really love the scripture and the pauses for silence, reflection and prayer. What I don’t like is that every user receives the same thing as each other every day, and the sermonettes thrown in. Having tens of thousands of people listening to the same sermons takes away from the user having a personalized opportunity in engage with God’s word and the Spirit and could be abused by the developer to manipulate hearts - for example on election days. The mini-sermons have been emphasizing certain aspects of the passage of scripture while ignoring others. I’ve found myself praying for the other users to not be bent by the sermons away from the heart of the scripture. If this were a tool where one could listen and reflect on scripture with the pauses for silence and prayer, but without the sermons and agenda, then it would be much better. Even better would be if it gives the user an opportunity to choose an area or topic with scripture that relates to that topic for a season for personal healing and growth. This is better produced than other apps, but I pray the developer uses it only for the spiritual benefit of the Body and not as a tool to push organizational agendas while distracting from full engagement with God’s Word as it is written.

I seriously want to give a very big thank you to the creators of this app. I’m a fifteen year old guy and for a while now I’ve been praying about something on my heart quite a bit. It’s that I felt that I was on the cusp of a closer more meaningful relationship with God and I really wanted that so badly. I just wanted to feel that closeness and peace that I’ve heard about others having. And at times I felt discouraged because it just seemed as if I couldn’t quite bridge the gap. But then tonight, I listened to the nighttime prayer on this app with my parents as they listen to it regularly. As I was following along with it, I just felt this overwhelming peace from God and I knew he was there with me and I could feel his love so clearly. And the voices and the music and just being with God was so amazing. I really think it helped me finally bridge the gap and it is awesome. I now have downloaded the app and will for sure be a regular user. Thanks so much.