In Christ, God made our hearts burn for him. Though our affections rise and fall, and our zeal boils over some days than others, coldness is not the Christian’s heritage. We are the ones who walk the road to Emmaus, our souls set on fire as Christ opens, again and again, the Scriptures that speak of him (Luke 24:32). We belong to the brotherhood of burning hearts.
However, we also know what it feels like when the fire burns out, when coldness takes over a heart that once burned. Some of us feel this way most mornings. Our hearts, like untended campfires, grow cold at night. We wake up ashen, needing the Spirit to breathe on us again.
What do we do when our hearts grow cold? Many ancient Christians, themselves lamps lit and lit, would advise us not only to read the word of God, and not only to pray the word of God, but also to slow down, take a deep breath and to meditate in the word of God.
What is meditation?
In common forms of meditation today, people sit or kneel to set the time, paying attention to the inhalation and exhalation of the breath. The mind is engaged, but not particularly active. Biblical meditation, however, calls for thought and feeling rather than posture and breathing. And most importantly, biblical meditation focuses not on our breathing but on God’s: we give ourselves, with rigorous reflection, to his exhaled word, until our hearts begin to warm.
Summarizing John Owen, Tim Keller offers a concise and helpful description of meditation:
Meditation is thinking a truth outside and then think a truth indoors until your ideas become “big”. and “sweet”, moving and moving, and until the reality of God is felt in the heart. (Prayer162)
Keller’s description finds classic expression in Psalm 1, the most important passage in Scripture on meditation. Here the psalmist thinks the truth outside, filling his mind with “the law of the Lord” instead of “the counsel of the wicked” (Psalm 1:1-2). He thinks and thinks, at specific times and also “day and night” (Psalm 1:2), directing his energies toward understanding God’s revealed truth.
He also thinks the truth in, pressing it into your soul until the Scripture becomes the sap that runs through all your members (Psalm 1:3). She not only understands the word of God, but she enjoys it: “Your delight it is in the law of the Lord” (Psalm 1:2). The truth has become big and sweet to him, displacing the alternative delights that flank him on all sides (Psalm 1:1).
Finally, having carved out the truth outside in your mind and within from your heart, the truth manifests itself in your life, setting you on a path of spiritual prosperity that is the prelude to a happy day of judgment (Psalm 1:4–6). No wonder he is “blessed” (Psalm 1:1), supremely happy in the God who speaks such wonderful words.
Why meditate?
Psalm 1 has already given us several reasons to meditate: Meditation warms and delights our hearts (Psalm 1:2). Meditation protects us from the fate of the wicked (Psalm 1:1, 5). Meditation makes us strong and fruitful like trees fed by rivers (Psalm 1:3). The first verse of the following psalm, however, offers another compelling reason.
“Biblical meditation requires more thinking and feeling than posture and breathing.”
Psalm 2, which records the futile fury of unbelievers against God’s anointed king, begins: “Why do nations rage, and why do people conspire in vain?” (Psalm 2:1). Surprisingly, as Derek Kidner observes, the Hebrew word for conspire here is the same as the word for to meditate in Psalm 1:2. The blessed one meditates; also the wicked nations; so does everyone else. we will meditate we will meditate one way or another, and if not in the words of God, then in the words provided by our flesh, the world, or the devil.
In a world like ours, pious meditation is a form of resistance, a recovery and renewal of a mind that once rebelled against God. Kidner writes of Psalm 1: “The mind was the first bastion to be defended, in verse 1, and it is treated as the key to the whole man. . . . What really shapes a man’s thinking shapes his life” (Psalms 1–72, 64). In other words: capture the mind, capture the man.
How do we meditate?
Practically, then how can we meditate? What steps can we take, with God’s help, to think his truth outside and think about it into in such a way that we are formed by the words of God instead of the words of man?
Consider a modest approach: prepare your mind and heart, pause and reflect, squeeze it in. To these we might also add the brief but necessary prequel to choosing a place and a time, probably as part of your daily Bible reading. Although meditation is not just an inconspicuous act but a lifestyle (“day and night”), the lifestyle develops from regular (even daily) uninterrupted moments of focused meditation. Some may find such moments scarce, but those who make the necessary sacrifices for even brief periods of meditation will find benefits more than enough to make up for their losses.
Having chosen our place and time, then, we are ready to prepare our minds and hearts.
1. Prepare your mind and heart.
John Owen describes a familiar experience in meditation: “I began to think of God, of his love and grace in Christ Jesus, of my duty to him; And where now, in a few minutes, am I? I have come to the ends of the earth” (Works of John Owen, 7:382). Meditations on God’s love can quickly turn into meditations on lunch, chores, or emails. So part of our preparation is to expect difficulties.
Meditation requires spiritual resolve, the kind that says, “I will meditate on your precepts and set my eyes on your paths” (Psalm 119:15). . The psalmist fixed his mind’s eye on the word of God, refusing to look at the shiny objects on the periphery. He fixed his attention on her, barred the doors against distractions and banished intrusive thoughts. And when he found that his mind wandered, his eyes were not fixed, he did not give up or turn around, but he tied the wanderer and restored his gaze.
More than that, gold. Past and present experiences revealed his insufficiency for meditation. Then he begged: “Open my eyes”, “Give me life”, “Make me understand”, “Teach me”, “Widen my heart”, “Guide me”, “Incline my heart”, “Turn back my eyes”, and so on ( Psalm 119:18, 25, 27, 29, 32, 35–37). Those who attempt prayerless meditation reject not only the armor of Saul, but also the sling of David: unarmed, they fight alone against the Goliath of distraction.
Mature meditators learn not to faint at the first temptation to distraction (or the tenth temptation). ), and they also learn not to rely on resolution alone.
2. Pause and meditate.
Meditation and Bible reading are not the same activity. If reading the Bible takes us under the stars, meditation puts our eye in the telescope and invites us to study Orion or Sirius. Meditation begins when we pause on a particular glory and begin to reflect. Perhaps the glory stopped us right in the middle of our Bible reading, or perhaps we return to it once we have finished a passage; either way, we start thinking about the specific glory outside: search, examine, observe, understand.
think a truth outside it can take any number of forms. If we just finished Psalm 1 and want to meditate on the first part of verse 2 (“His delight is in the law of the Lord”), we could, for example, write the verse slowly. Or we can read the verse repeatedly, each time emphasizing a different word: “His delight is in the law of the Lord”, “His delight is in the law of the Lord”. Gentleman . . .” Or we might force ourselves to ask questions: How is “the law of the Lord” related to “the counsel of the wicked” in verse 1? Why does the psalmist say that his delight is in law of the Lord and not in the Mister same?
“Meditation is not just for ardent and zealous Christians, but for those who know they are not.”
Don’t be afraid to speak up. the word for to meditate it carries the idea of speech; that’s why translators sometimes translate it as tell, tell either murmur (Psalm 35:28; 37:30; Isaiah 8:19). That is also why God tells Joshua: “He will never depart from your mouth this book of the law, but you shall meditate on it day and night” (Joshua 1:8). So try to speak God’s word too, which can at least help focus your attention.
3. Tap it.
Some may be tempted to stop here. But think of a truth outside it is only a part of the meditation, because a heart that understands the word of God can still feel cold before the word of God; it can experience light, but without heat. So after thinking a truth outsidewe think about it withinpressing it into our hearts.
“Preach yourself” may now sound like a worn application. But for all our familiarity with the idea, I wonder if the actual practice has been largely untested, or perhaps was briefly tested and then shelved. Either way, one of the most powerful methods of bringing God’s truth home is to announce it. As Richard Baxter writes: “Imitate the most powerful preacher you have ever heard” (A Quest for Godliness13).
How often do you stand in the pulpit of your soul during your devotions? How often do you take a truth in your hands and play the role of prophet or psalmist, not for someone else but for yourself? How often do you rebuke his unbelief, declare God’s fixed truth to his fluctuating feelings, and strive to preach fire in his cold heart?
‘I will meditate’
Meditation is not just for ardent and zealous Christians, but for those who know they are not. Meditation is for those who, like the author of Psalm 119, can say, “I have gone astray like a lost sheep” (Psalm 119:176), whether for a day, a week, or a month.
The same wandering psalmist says four times to God and to himself, “I will meditate” (Psalm 119:15, 27, 48, 78). I will meditatebecause I know that my heart needs warmth. I will meditatebecause I know how easily I get sidetracked. I will meditatebecause I need to see his glory. I will meditatebecause only He can rekindle my delight.
Blessed, happy! — are those who say the same thing (Psalm…