Episode #252 Sacred Focus: Finding God in a Distracted World – Unforced Rhythms of Grace

Hey friend, have you ever sat down to pray or maybe memorize a Bible verse and a few minutes later, you realize that you're making a shopping list in your head?

Or maybe you really love the idea of slowing down with God, but life is just too loud to make that feel realistic.
Well, today we're breaking down what biblical meditation actually means. And spoiler alert, it's not about clearing your mind. It's actually about filling your mind with the right things.

We're in this series on unforced rhythms of grace and we're taking a look at spiritual disciplines. And the first one is the inner discipline of meditation. Now, if you're not familiar with meditation, or if that sounds scary to you in some way, I'm going to ask you to hang in with me for a couple episodes. There's a huge difference between Eastern or New Age types of meditation and Christian biblical meditation, which is what we're talking about.
And the Bible talks about meditation a lot.

In fact, there's two main words that are used in the original biblical Hebrew to talk about meditation. There's Haga and Siak, and please don't come for me if I'm mispronouncing those, but combined, these two words are used 58 times in scripture. And their definitions describe meditation to have, various meanings, like listening to God and reflecting on God's word, rehearsing His deeds, ruminating on God's law, pondering Him, musing on Him, and considering even putting thoughts forth. And so if the word meditation is unfamiliar to you and is uncomfortable in that way, consider replacing that word in our conversation here with one of the other phrases. We're talking about listening to God. We're talking about pondering his word.

But before we get there, I want to acknowledge that this is not an easy thing to do. In Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster, he says "In contemporary society our Adversary majors in three things: noise, hurry, and crowds. If he can keep us engaged in “muchness” and “manyness,” he’ll be satisfied."

Now I'm not saying that everything we have to do is an attack or an affront from the enemy. But I do see how having many things to do can be something that we need to stay alert to as we're seeking to fix our eyes on God and to set aside time to think on him and to talk with him and to listen for what he would share with us.

For many of us, it's easy to read the Bible and move on with our days, knowing that we should savor it, maybe wanting to savor it or even savoring it, but not knowing how to stay engaged and mindful of God and his word as we go about our normal everyday lives.

But the practices we're talking about today actually make that feasible. We can stay mindful to notice God and listen to what he would share with us and ponder him as we go about our full lives.

And so I want to suggest to you four main categories of things worth meditating on, even when life is loud and busy. The first one is God himself in Psalm 63:6, it says, “I think of thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the watches of the night” (Psalm 63:6). God is worthy of our thoughts and he is so beyond our understanding that pondering him could easily fill all of our time. That's a worthwhile use of our mental energy.

The second thing to meditate on is God's acts. In Psalm 77:12, it says, “I will ponder all your work, and meditate on your mighty deeds” (Psalm 77:12 ESV). So we have who God is and what he does, which are related but separate.
The third category worth meditating on is God's Word, which includes his promises. In Psalm 119:148, which is all about God's Word, it says, “My eyes are awake before the watches of the night, that I may meditate upon thy promise” (Ps. 119:148).

God's word to us is full of promises, but it's not just full of promises. It's also full of laws, which is the fourth category. In Psalm 1:2, it talks about “the “blessed man whose delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night” (Psalm 1:2).

So as we meditate, we can listen to God talk with us about who he is and what he does, and hear him talk to about his word, his promises for us, and his law that he offers us.

And that fourth one is probably the hardest one for me because I grew up with such a legalistic background. I was good at the law, but it was heavy and it was not life giving and it did not encourage me to draw near to God. If anything, when I would make mistakes, I would withdraw from God until I felt like I'd done enough good things to try and come back toward Him again.

But God's law guides us in right paths. He offers us his law, not as a burden, but as a blessing. As a way of helping us experience fullness of life with him, just as he does with his promises. And so the question that I want to leave you with today is to talk with God about which of these categories might be harder for you to meditate on. And ask God to talk with you more about that, to share his insights with you. And so here's our question:

God, do I ever avoid pondering you, your works, your word, or your law? Why is that?

Have a good talk.

And if you've been encouraged by this content, please share it with a friend and help them grow in their conversational relationship with God too!

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