I love to write. I’m not talking about publishing books or articles but about putting words on paper. It’s the best way I’ve found to process emotions, untangle ideas, capture fleeting moments, and organize pending tasks. I rarely leave my house without a notebook and a pen. They’re crucial tools to face this crazy world.
One kind of writing holds a special place in my heart. It stands out because it doesn’t involve my words but the words of God. It’s the writing of Scripture. I love to transcribe the Bible.
Nothing complicated: I take a notebook, open the Bible, and start copying God’s words. One by one. I focus on the book I’m studying at that time. Sometimes I transcribe extensive passages; sometimes I focus on a few verses. I don’t add highlights or personal reflections; most of the time, I don’t even include verse numbers. I simply read slowly and write, read slowly and write, read slowly and write.
This practice has become essential for my devotional times. I constantly recommend it for two simple reasons: transcribing the Bible—word by word—leads me to listen attentively to the heart of God and to disclose my troubled heart to him.
Listen to God
We’ve all had—or rather, attempted to have—a conversation with someone who doesn’t seem capable of putting her phone down. We uncomfortably watch her half-heartedly respond while her thumbs move rapidly, typing a message to someone else. When she finally puts the phone in her pocket, she still doesn’t seem entirely present with us. “What did you say?” she asks, as if the problem were our talking and not her listening.
It’s uncomfortable to interact with someone who wants to be in two places at once. It’s even more uncomfortable to recognize we often act in this way in front of the God of the universe.
We open our Bibles, and without thinking too much, we unlock our phones to make sure we haven’t missed something “important.” We find the passage, read two sentences, and suddenly we’re thinking about the to-do list for the day. After 10 minutes of daydreaming, we remember what we were doing. We start again. We find a verse about laziness. “Wow, this is God’s word for Aaron,” we say. We wish we could take a picture and send it, so he could get the hint about how unacceptable it is to arrive late to Sunday meetings three weeks in a row. We glance at the clock and panic when we realize we’ll be late for work. We read the rest of the chapter in two minutes, quickly scanning the page. Great! we think. I managed to check off today’s reading.
Does it surprise us that when God speaks, we don’t understand? Our attention jumps from one place to another instead of focusing on the One who loves us and calls us to know him through Scripture. How will we delight in the sweetness of the Lord’s Word when we swallow it in one gulp as if it were a morning vitamin?
Transcribing the Bible may not be the magic solution to all our distraction problems, but it can help us face them. Observing Scripture carefully and copying it word by word forces us to slow down and think deeply about what we’re reading. We can see things in the text we hadn’t seen in our haste. We’ll be in a better position to contemplate the beauty of the heart of our Lord, ask deeper questions, and find more revealing answers than when we glance at the passage.
Talk to God
I don’t know if you’ve ever been so distressed that you have absolutely nothing to say. It’s happened to me a couple of times. The days passed with me in bed, staring at the wall in front of me. I barely managed to do the basic things I needed to survive. In such moments of deep darkness, forming a coherent thought seems impossible. Offering prayers doesn’t feel like an option. There are no words.
The good news is that God hasn’t left us helpless. We may feel abandoned and hopeless, but we aren’t. The Bible teaches us that when we don’t know how to pray, the Spirit of God intercedes for us in our weakness (Rom. 8:26). But that’s not all. When we have no words, we can remember that God has given us his words to make them ours and give them back to him.
We can use the many prayers we find in Scripture as a starting point for our prayers. For example, we can take the words of Hannah in 1 Samuel 1:11 and pray like this: “God, look at my pain. Remember me. Don’t forget me. You know my heart and know what I long for the most, Lord. I beg you to grant it to me. I trust in you!”
We can also use the prayers we find in the Bible when we have no words of our own to express. We can simply take a piece of paper and a pen and transcribe the cry that God himself inspired.
When you have no words, borrow the words from the Bible and write them down one by one. The Lord knows your heart and sees how you make that passage your own. Write “How long, O LORD?” (Ps. 13:1) or “Be gracious to me, O God, for man tramples on me; all day long an attacker oppresses me” (56:1).
Transcribe with faith the verses where the Bible reminds you of the power and salvation of the Lord: “For you have delivered my soul from death, yes, my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of life” (56:13). Let your heart be comforted by remembering the mercy of the Father revealed in Jesus Christ. By transcribing the prayers of the Bible amid pain, you can rejoice in praying according to the will of God because you’re praying his Word.
One of my favorite prayers is found in Psalm 119:18: “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.” I need to lift that cry continually because sometimes I’m frightened by the lack of amazement in my heart toward the Word of God. I’m concerned about how quickly I get distracted, how fast I read, how easy it is to leave my time in the Bible and prayer for later. We need our eyes to be opened.
Having access to Scripture is a privilege. It’s a gift to know the Lord and possess the words he inspired to express what’s in our hearts when we don’t know what to say. Let’s not despise it. In Jesus, we can approach the Lord with confidence and enjoy the beauty of his truth. Let’s do it, imprinting his words on our hearts and—sometimes—on paper.
