What do you think of when you hear the word “meditation”? Maybe closed eyes, crossed legs and a hearty “om”? Colouring books? Apps? Kung Fu Panda? Meditation has become wildly popular in recent years on the journey to wellness and personal flourishing. These trends, rooted in eastern religions, are so widespread that they’ve eclipsed in some way a rich and beautiful heritage of Biblical meditation.
Meditation is one of the main ways the Bible speaks about a Christian’s relationship with the Word of God. While mindfulness and eastern meditation aim for an emptying of the mind to achieve stillness and peace, Biblical meditation aims toward filling your mind with God’s truth that gives flourishing, joy and stability in him. Biblical meditation enriches our spiritual life by driving the truths of God’s word into our hearts and lives.
Letting it brew
Psalm 1 is one of the most familiar mentions of meditation in the Bible:
“Blessed is the one… whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither— whatever they do prospers.”
I grew up singing these words, and felt in some way familiar with the concept of meditating on God’s Word. It is a regular thing that happens “day and night”. It’s a joy, a “delight” to do. It clearly has benefits, pictured by this tree that is steady and stable in all seasons, flourishes at times, it’s healthy and prosperous. But my understanding of meditation as just thinking about God’s Word left me a bit unclear on how to actually do that in a useful way. The way the Bible talks about meditation gives a much richer and clearer picture than I had picked up.
The word used here in Psalm 1 (hagah) could be translated as “meditate”, “moan”, “mutter”, “speak”, “muse”. The sense of the word is speaking something to yourself, dwelling on it in your heart. The other main Hebrew term translated as meditation (siyach) could be translated as “talk”, “declare”, “ponder” or “pray”, the implication is lovingly repeating the Word of God to yourself.
In the New Testament a few different terms are used to convey meditation, such as “think” or “dwell” (Philippians 4:8), “consider” (Hebrews 11:19), “to fix one’s attention on” (Colossians 3:2) and “remember” or “recall” (Hebrews 13:7).
Biblical meditation encourages us not just to hear God’s voice through his Word, but to think it over, repeat it to ourselves, dwell on it until we feel its truth and mesh it into our hearts and lives. Its output is a growing grasp of the reality revealed in God’s Word and action on our part to increasingly live in light of that reality.
For the tea lovers out there, Donald S. Whitney captures it well:
“Hearing God’s Word is like one dip of the tea bag into the cup. Some of the tea’s flavour is absorbed by the water, but not as much as would occur with a more thorough soaking of the bag… [Meditation] is like immersing the bag completely and letting it steep until all the rich tea flavour has been extracted.”
Tim Keller helpfully points to meditation as a missing link between our Bible reading and prayer. When we move from one to the other without thinking much about what has been said and what that means, our quiet times can feel a bit clunky or dry. Meditation is the step between hearing God’s Word and responding to him in prayer with hearts full of thanks and praise.
Getting started
Under the big principle of driving God’s truth into our hearts and lives, here are a few ways to help you get started meditating Biblically that you could incorporate into your regular Bible reading. Two important things that underpin all of these: prayer and perseverance!
Meditation takes discipline, it can feel like hard work, keep going with it! At the very least it will grow your understanding of your own weakness and need for God’s help which is never a bad thing. Keep asking for his help as you chew over his Word. Pray for understanding, for focus, for delight in his Word. So what are some helpful things to consider in our meditation?
- Ask questions
A few general questions to help with understanding a passage: what does this tell me about God and his character? About human nature, character and behaviour? About Christ and his salvation? About the church, or life in the people of God?
For application, look for personal examples within the passage to imitate or avoid, for any instructions to obey, promises to take hold of, and warnings to pay attention to. Ask yourself: what is the result of me forgetting or doubting this truth? What sins might result from not fully appreciating this truth? Is there something I should stop or start doing because of this?
- Emphasise
Pressing into the text is key to Biblical meditation, emphasising each word of a verse in turn is one way of doing that. As you stress each word, think about what it contributes to the meaning of the verse and what would be lost if it wasn’t there.
- Paraphrase
Paraphrasing a verse helps you think deeply about its meaning as you process it in your own words. As you do this, keep going back to the original verse and reshaping your paraphrase to reflect its meaning as much as possible. This will help you understand the verse better and help push it into your heart as you use language which is natural to you.
- Memorise
Memorising scripture is a way of hiding the Lord’s Word in our hearts (Psalm 119) and dwelling on it richly (Colossians 3:16). It can lead more naturally to meditation throughout the day and equip us as we try to live out the truth of the Bible. Throughout the process of trying to remember exact words, you may also see meaning that you might have missed on a quick glance.
Emma is from Inverness and now lives in Edinburgh with her husband Davi. They are part of Chalmers Church, where they both spent two years as Ministry Associates and now where Davi is the Student Worker. Emma works as a UCCF Staff Worker with the fine students of Heriot-Watt and Galashiels CUs. She loves coffee, breakfast food, sing-alongs, being in/talking about the Highlands and low-level crafting.
