The Discipline of Christian Meditation
The Discipline of Christian Meditation
By Pastor John Dawson
Christian Meditation happens when we set aside time to let the truth of God sink unhurried into our hearts. It is one discipline that helps us have the mind of Christ. The goal of Christian meditation is to empty the mind of your thoughts and fill it with God's thoughts, so God's thoughts become your thoughts. Christian meditation is not just detachment. It's attachment to God in a way that you can't get by studying or by doing things.
There are two parts to Christian meditation. First is taking all your cares and casting them upon the Lord (1 Peter 5:7). The cares of your life are always on you. They invade your mind. When you meditate you set them on the outside and close the gate of your mind to them. This is not easy because these concerns keep trying to come back in and take over your thoughts. You must stop and intentionally set them outside until you're done meditating.
The second part of meditating is focusing on something from the Lord. It is not the same as study. You're not looking to learn something with your mind. Your focus is for God's word to live and work in you. Meditation is rolling God's word around in your heart. When you study you work on mastering the text. When you meditate on the Word, you want the text to master you.
When you hear the word meditation you might think, “That's not for me. I live in the fast-paced world that is always in your face. Meditation is for holy hermits.” But the Bible itself indicates that meditation is for people who live in the real world. The psalmist is not meditating from an ivory tower. He is a man in conflict. Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of the unjust and cruel man (Psalm 71:4). He is being attacked by enemies, and he shelters his heart in meditation on the Lord. Psalm 23 is so peaceful with its still waters and green pastures, but it is the song of one who is going through the valley of the shadow of death and is feasting with his enemies all around him. The psalmist meditates not because life is tranquil but because he is in the midst of a battle. He can't afford to focus on the insults of his enemies. He does not want to get sucked deeper into that battle. He wants to have the power of God in the middle of his trials. Isn't that what we need to do?
Meditation is for you. But the problem we have is finding the time to meditate on the Word. The problems of the world try to invade us all the time. When they succeed, we wind up more and more like the world and less like the Lord. In our society the Devil majors in three things: noise, hurry, and crowds. The Tempter would have us think that if we are not making noise, in a hurry, or forming a crowd, then we are not doing anything worthwhile. This is just not true.
What does meditation actually look like? The first and most difficult thing to do is becoming quiet. Inside us are so many concerns. Someone may look calm on the outside while inside is a torrent of feelings, desires, emotions, words, or concerns. When I sit in a quiet place the first thing that happens is this: all these things flood into my mind. When they come in I have to purposely give them over to the Lord. “Lord, I give you the anger I feel towards this person. I give you my fear about that situation. Lord, I give you my worry about this future event.”
Once you have stilled the voices and concerns that fill your being most of the time, meditate on something from the Lord. It's best to use a passage of scripture you know really well. You can call these to mind at any time. I find it especially helpful when I wake up in the night. Meditation is not about learning with your head, but personalizing, internalizing, and changing your heart to be more like Christ's heart.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God (Colossians 3:16). I want to challenge you to set aside a short period of time every day to meditate. You may meditate on just one verse. Or even the same verse for several days. The point is to let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. May you grow in your understanding of God’s love for you and his good purposes for you.
Pastor John