Scripture and Meditation - Tammy Wendling
/SCRIPTURE AND MEDITATION
Soooo, the spiritual discipline, meditation, conjures up for me, a calm, peaceful, intentional quiet time where incredibly abled believers sit in prayer and thought. The same thought gives me a panicked feeling of suffocation at my own inabilities with regards to meditation. It’s why I’m terrible at contemplative yoga and why I still haven’t signed up for a silent retreat. It’s just not how I process thoughts, and thankfully, I’ve come to understand - IT’S OKAY!
It’s taken many years of prayer and study to realize meditating on God’s Word and presence in my life is personal to me and my walk with Him, as is yours. I’ve come to appreciate how I process and celebrate how God’s word reverberates in my heart and soul continually. I believe it’s imperative we read, hear, and experience scripture every day to meditate/process His voice in our lives. Thankfully, we have many options today to receive the Word of God. We can read and study the Bible and other books. We have the ability to listen and watch online, hear podcasts, or even via CDs and tapes. The key, beyond experiencing scripture, is to think, ponder, converse, pray. Meditation happens within ourselves as we reflect, consider, and contemplate God’s Word. It’s an active response to engage our minds and hearts centered on what God intends for us to know.
Anyone that knows me knows I want the “how-to’s.” Below are a few practical ways to experience and meditate on scripture and its meaning in our lives.
Study God’s Word! Take the time to put scripture in front of you. Slow down your reading; re-listen to the scripture. Highlight, circle, underline points that stand out to you. Read it again. Listen again.
Memorize scripture or even memorize what it means to you. Think on it; pray over the words for God to make them clear to you as you need them this day.
Remember the spiritual discipline, adoration. Adore and admire God’s creation all around you. Breathe in the immense beauty in every piece of nature and being, and this includes yourself. Smile in the knowledge you belong to Him, and he’s taken the time to speak to you through the scripture you read today. The omnipotent, omniscient God of our universe loves you and speaks to you!
Overall, meditating on God’s Word doesn’t necessarily mean you must be in a yoga pose on a mountaintop, although I surely think it would be a beautiful way to meditate. What’s important is that we constantly seek communion with our loving God, where we are, in whatever form that takes. Get His Word front and center every day and contemplate, think, pray, reflect, repeat.
Thank you, Lord.
Tammy