August 3, 2014

What meditation is and isn't

Oh, how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day. Psalm 119:97

Meditation is not a guru sitting cross-legged with palms up contemplating nothingness. It is filling our minds with truth, not an irrational emptying of our minds.

The Hebrew word for “meditate” means to “ponder deeply.”  It is to mull over God’s truth.  You are meditating when you take a bit of Scripture and “chew over” each sentence, phrase, and word.  Meditation is saturating your mind (cramming your soul!) with the Word of God.

Have you ever closed your Bible after reading a chapter or two only to realize you’ve forgotten most, if not all, of what you just read  Don’t blame your age or IQ.  This kind of forgetfulness is common and meditation is the cure.

Donald Whitney writes: “…anyone who reads the Bible without meditating on it becomes a forgetful reader…If you normally spend ten minutes in Bible reading, from now on don’t spend your entire time reading…read for five minutes and meditate for five minutes.  It’s far better to read less but remember more than to read for the entire ten minutes and remember nothing.  It’s far better to close your Bible knowing that you have something from God’s Word with you so that you can ‘meditate in it day and night’ (Joshua 1:8) than to realize that you’ve already forgotten everything you’ve read.”