MEDITATION
Have you ever seen sheep or cows chewing on and on? This is called ruminating. A person is said to be ruminating when they are turning something over in their mind; thinking deeply about it. This is exactly what we need to do with God’s word. Read Isaiah 28:9, 10 – We acquire knowledge, “little by little; principle by principle; here a little, there a little”. So much to say about this . . . how about 5-W’s and an H to make it simpler.
Q. I want to start with Why? A. Joshua 1:8 and Psalm 1 both promise that if we meditate on God’s word – DAY AND NIGHT – we will prosper and have good success. One might wonder, “what is bad success?” I would venture that bad success is that success that is not according to God’s ways and thoughts. As an example, Solomon was one of the most successful men on the planet, full of Godly wisdom, until he started to disobey God’s precepts. So we can have real success in everything we do if we exchange our sinful ideas for God’s. This may be the mysterious thing that has been in your way of success.
Q. What is meditation? A. By looking at the root words we can better understand what it is. Hebrew word hāg̱āh: A verb meaning to growl, to groan, to sigh, to mutter, to speak; used figuratively: to meditate, to ponder. The Greek word μελετάω meletáō: means to care about, meditation, to be of interest, to concern oneself. To consider, weigh or ponder over something so as to be able to perform well. This suggests one pondering something, turning it over in the mind, till they sigh, speak to themselves, ask the Lord a question . . . all done subconsciously but deliberately, so as to be able to act with understanding.
Q. Who needs to meditate? A. The scriptures show that people of God – both in the Old Covenant and the New – who desire God’s best and fear Him, need to pay attention to His word and seek diligently by prayerful meditation, coupled with prayer, study, and other disciplines, so they can obey Him. This is being written to disciples. People who have repented, have been baptized, and filled with God’s Spirit. People who desire to follow Jesus and as such find the Word of God of inestimable value. They need no coaxing, they understand, their very lives depend on everything it contains. People who as Jesus says in John 15, ‘abide in Christ, and His word abides in them’.
Q. When do we meditate? A. Day and night! 24 x 7! The human mind never stops! Even when we sleep, our minds are still active. This is why we worry all night and wake up exhausted. That is exactly what meditation is, except in those instances we are meditating on our fears, the devil’s lies and accusations, and his fortune telling, rather than on the truth.
Q. Where should I meditate? A. Anywhere! On your bed (especially at night); you may choose to find a quiet place; go for a walk; in traffic. Literally anywhere you can think quietly. If you always have noise in your life – music, yak yak yak on the phone, facebook etc., you will have a hard time meditating meaningfully.
Q. And finally How do I meditate? A. The first thing about meditation is choosing very carefully what you allow in your mind to ponder. Philippians 4:6-8 gives us a checklist by which to assess if something should be in our minds. Use this list to assess music, literature, news sources, social media, . . . any thing that can introduce thoughts into our minds. It should come as no surprise that a child that is fed 50% poison and 50% breastmilk is sickly and stunted in his or her growth. Why then are we bewildered when we take in 10% of God’s word and 90% of worldly ideas about everything important – our value, our identity, our future, our calling, our relationships – EVERTHING! and our lives fall short of the biblical ideals?
Before I wrap up, I want to link meditating to ‘renewing our minds’. Our minds are like a computer, and our habits, thoughts and memories make up the software and input. When we are baptized into Christ the power of demons is broken in our lives. Now we have the power to say “No!” to sin. However, we still need to change the way we think. God will not do this for us because then we would be robots! That’s the very reason He did not override the free will of Adam and Eve. The bible teaches that we acquire God’s knowledge ‘line upon line, precept upon precept’.
That means that renewing the mind is a process in which we discern and capture our principles as we see their opposition to God’s. Then we reject ours and adopt His! It is DELIBERATE mind work. It results in us becoming more like our Savior, AND results in our success, good success! Success as a whole person – our personal peace and prosperity of our soul, victory in every area of our lives – spiritual, intellectual, relational, emotional, physical . . . EVERY aspect of our lives changes.
Please watch my youtube video on this subject for a more complete picture. There’s coming a Part II.
God bless you!