Meditation

Introduction

Just like spiritual fomration, its not a chrsitian maede practice. Its a practice practiced for milliniels. we meditate every day:

Deep breathing

Journaling

Ancient pratices like

Tai Chi

soaking in a bath

listening to music

Its the mindful effort aimed at cultivating awareness and presence in the moment, often with the goal of reducing stress, improving focus, enhancing emotional regulation, and fostering a greater sense of calm and well-being.

To pose the a smiliar question i asked two weeks ago, the question isn’t if we are meditating. It’s who or who are we meditatiing on. It’s who or what are we cultivating an awareness and presence of?

Definition: Act of calling to mind some supposition, pondering upon it, and correlating it to one’s own life. In ancient Israel, this involved two roots

To utter in a low voice - like a the growling of a lion

“to be occupied with,” or “concerned about”.

Thus meditation is the repetitious going over of a matter in one’s mind because it is the chief concern of life. The constant recollection of God’s past deeds by the hearing of Scripture and repetition of thought produce confidence in God (Pss. 63:6–8; 104:34; 119:15, 23, 48, 78, 97, 99, 148; 143:5).

In Christian traditions, meditation is a spiritual practice typically involving quiet reflection, contemplation, and prayerful focus on God, scripture, or other spiritual themes, with the aim of deepening one’s connection with God and seeking spiritual insight. Meditation can also refer to the repetition and memorization of scripture. In fact, Psalms and Ecclesiates are full of ways, warnings and reminders of the importance of mediatiting on God’s words, ways and presence.

What I want to do, is highlight those three things (quiet reflection, contemplation and prayerful focus on God, scrpiture, or other spiritual themes), to a bit of a deep dive, then give opporunity for you to practice the three

Quiet Reflection - Guided Meditation

Imagine you are walking in a hot desert. hot and exhausted, you notice a well. wanting to be filled for the next part of the journey, you head over for a drink. You wouldn’t splash some of the water on your face. You slowly lower the bucket to the depth of the well, to draw out cool cold water for a deep relpesnishing drink.

Quiet relfectons involves opening our minds and filling it with God's truth, leading to deeper communion with Him. I am hesistent to include applications because, the goal isn’t to find a nugget or truth in scripture all the time. Sometimes you will get stuck on a particular section or word and it causes you to spsend more time on that partuclar part. It’s in those moments, where God is leading you to deeper undertaanding, taking you into places that requires deeper faith.

How do we see this in scripture?

On God’s Word

Psalm 1:2 “but their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night.”

Joshua 1:8 “This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth; you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to act in accordance with all that is written in it. For then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall be successful.”

On God’s Character

Psalm 46:10 ““Be still, and know that I am God! I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth.””

Psalm 8:3–5 “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.”

Jesus’s examples

Mark 1:35 “In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.”

This practice is so crucial because we live in such a culture that is looking to consume our attention in time. Social media algorithms are constantly working to keep you engaged and on the platform longer. This is driven by the attention economy model where your attention is a valuable resource that platforms and advertisers compete for. We call this doom scrolling. One minute you are looking at a cat video, before you know it, you are 40 minutes into a video of a hacker hacking into scam call centers deleting files

The things we thing and consume, area part of our lives more than we know it. The next time you react to something in a way

Philippians 4:8 “Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

Think about these things.....

Prayerful Focus on God -

As i stated earlier, mediatation is not only a christian practice. But what makes this practice different than practices centered around meditation is God.

When Moses was getting ready to lead the people in to the Promise Land, God prompted him to reflect on what previously happened, leading up to this point. About the 400 years of slavery, how God lead them out after many plagues, then the huge sea splitting. the wilderness.

God wants us to be aware of what He is capable of. To let His character speak for himself. He has done that and continues to do so through His word. We get in on Hid agenda reflecting on it

Psalm 119 is a great place to draw understanding from on this

Give me understanding, that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart." (v. 34)

"My soul melts away for sorrow; strengthen me according to your word!" (v. 28)

"I stretch out my hands toward your commandments, which I love, and I will meditate on your statutes." (v. 48)

"Teach me good judgment and knowledge, for I believe in your commandments." (v. 66)

This clearly shows that meditation on Scripture is not separate from, but deeply integrated with, direct prayer to God. The meditation fuels the prayer.

Jesus’ example in The Lord’s prayer teaches us hte practice of getting God in on our agenda and getting us in His’. So the

Your kingdom come

Your will be done

on earth as it is in heaven

It’s being occupied with and/or concerned with God’s agenda.

Contemplation -

contemplative prayer isn’t looking to get anything from God; it’s just looking at God. “I look at Him, He looks at me, and we are happy.”

Dr. Rich Plass wrote, “Contemplative prayer is a willingness to enjoy and be present to God. It is a matter of being consciously aware of my presence in Christ and attentive to Christ’s presence within me. It is saying yes to God with my whole being but without words.”

sit in your sin and let God love you.” He did not mean “Keep sinning and don’t feel guilty.” He meant “When you sin [and I will, as you will], don’t hide it from God. Hold it before God, with no excuses, no blame shifting, no denial, just utter vulnerability, and let God love you as you are. And then let God love you into who you have the potential to become.”

Scripture

Psalm 119:99 “I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your decrees are my meditation.”

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

Psalm 77:6 “I commune with my heart in the night; I meditate and search my spirit:”

Practices

Lectio Divina -breath prayer

Contemplative Prayer

Pause

As lenter prayer now, I pause xO he still to r breathe slowly, to re-centre my scattered senses upon the presence of God.

Pause and pray

Prayer of Approach

Ancient of Days*, my foundation and my future, help me to live faithfully and prayerfully today, true to You and to those who've gone before, as a witness to your world today and to generations to come.

Rejoice and Reflect

I choose to rejoice in God's smiling face today, joining with the ancient praise of God's people in the words of Psalm 67..

May God be merciful and bless us. May his face smile with favor on us. May your ways be known throughout the earth,

your saving power among people everywhere.

May the nations praise you, O God. Yes, may all the nations praise you.

Psalm 67:1-3 (NLT)

Pause and pray

Ask

Although I am only too aware of my own B imperfections, I long to walk faithfully with you in my generation. Lord, I pray now for holiness, blessing and favour to be in me and in the life of those close to me, whether they be my own family, my church family, or friends and neighbours.

Pause and pray

Lord, I pray for someone I know who has had a particularly challenging childhood and has been broken by the sins and failures of their parents. Lord would you bring generational healing to them and turn the tide in their family line.

Pause and pray

11:17 3 0 e

P.R.A.Y

Pause

Reflect

Ask

Yield

Yield

As I return to the passage, I look out for a particular word or phrase that the Holy Spirit seems to be highlighting to me toda....

the LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had pecome on the earth, and that every nclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the

time...

but Noah found favour in the eves of the LORD

This is the account of Noah and his family.

Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he Nalked faithfully with God. Noah hac three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth

Vow the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence. Goc saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways

Genesis 6:5,8-12 (NIVUK

take a moment to reflect now on any worc phrase that the Holy Spirit is highlighting for me. or don't need to be a trained psychologist or a behavioural scientist to notice that the positive or negative choices and behaviours of parents can be passed down to their £hildren. But whatever my heritage, I can be sure that God's heart is always to bless, to rescue, and to redeem, not just individuals but entire families. No matter what I have experienced in my past, or received from previous generations, it's wonderful to <now that the choices I make today to wall faithfully with God can bring blessing and nope for generations to come. God is in the pusiness of rewriting family-trees

Pause and pray

Yielding Prayer

Lord, I know that in this world I may encounter sin, corruption, and violence at every turn, but I choose the way of holiness today. Help me to live "without complaining and arguing a clean, innocent life as your child, shining like a bright light in a world full of crooked and perverse people, holding irmly to the word of life.." (adapted trom Philippians 2:14-16, NLT)

Yielding Promise

And now, as I prepare to take this time of orayer into the coming day, the Lord who loves me says in Ephesians:

Now to him who is able to do mmeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that s at work within us, to him be glory n the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for eve and ever! Amen

Ephesians 3:20-21 (NIVUK,

Closing Prayer

Father, help me to live this day to the full being true to you in every way Jesus, help me to give myself away to others, being kind to everyone I meet Spirit, help me to love the lost, proclaiming Christ in all I do and say Amen.