Meditation Excercise

Having trouble meditating on Scripture, or medittion in general? Well, Duh! Anything that is good for us is usually not easy, but can be be learned (and enjoyed) through Practice. Check out Meditation Is A Practice by Heath Davis Havlick at the Uncovery Discovery Blog:

My husband recently asked me to write something for him because, as he put it, “I’m not good at that.” The response that flew out of my mouth surprised me: “You don’t get better at it by not doing it!”

This is what I call a “divine duh” moment. It’s a thing that you may not have articulated, but when you hear it, you instantly know it’s true. So true, in fact, that it seems on the surface to be a “No duh!” statement – except that its implications are too profound to dismiss it as a truism.

As soon as the words came out, I thought of meditation (or, for our purposes, also called Centering Prayer). That’s because I know it’s a common complaint that people have regarding meditation: they just don’t feel like they’re any good at it. And because I was thinking of one particular friend who dislikes the practice because it feels like failure to her; it’s hard to measure progress, so it just feels like a waste of valuable time.

However, that’s just the personality talking. Did Yo-Yo Ma set his cello aspirations aside after hitting a few bad notes? Did Simone Biles give up gymnastics after her first few falls from a balance beam? Did Tiger Woods hang up his clubs after a few weeks of attempting the perfect swing?

No, or else we wouldn’t know their names. But this isn’t about fame; it’s about practice. These people really wanted something, and they were willing to be less than perfect to start. Or, in some cases, for a long time. They put in untold hours of practice.

The goal of meditation is not to be perfect at it. The goal is to create a quiet, still space that enables you to hear, feel, even see God. Sure, it’s frustrating to attempt this and get nothing but a head full of noise and distraction, particularly when your goal is deeper union with God. But that’s a worthy goal whose very attempt is success.

In other words, if you practice meditation and “fail” at it, you have succeeded. The attempt is success. Because stillness and quiet must be practiced; they are not natural behaviors for us. But they can be learned – not by avoiding them, but by practicing them.
So, the question to ask yourself is, “Am I willing to do something that I’m probably going to feel bad at in order to get better at it so that I can encounter God at a deeper level?” That’s a question only you can answer. I sure hope it’s “Yes.” God longs for you with a longing beyond words, and he is waiting in stillness for you.

Confused about how to start? Here’s what I do. I go to a place that’s quiet and has a door. I close that door and sit with a straight back. (This is so you can breathe easier.) I close my eyes and welcome the Holy Spirit. As thoughts come to me—and they will—I notice them and release them; I don’t start making the grocery list or rehearsing the conversation. Let those thoughts go and pay attention to the sound and feel of your breath. There’s nothing magical about breathing; it’s just that focusing on this helps you to stay focused on what’s happening right now rather than on grocery lists etc.

I also use an app from the Centering Prayer folks. It’s handy because you can set a timer—start with five minutes if you’re new to meditation—and you can choose from a wonderful array of chimes, from Gregorian chants to lutes to singing bowls! Anything to help this sometimes-hard practice, right? Do this every day. Yes, every day.

Please share your experiences, frustrations and breakthroughs regarding Centering Prayer. We all learn from each other.

Leave Room For Silence

"Let us leave a little room for reflection in our lives, room too for silence. Let us look within ourselves and see whether there is some delightful hidden place inside where we can be free of noise and argument. Let us hear the Word of God in stillness and perhaps we will then come to understand it."

          - St. Augustine of Hippo

Burned Out?

From the BGEA via Charisma - Five Ways to Refresh A Burned-Out Soul

Burnout—it's real, and it can have major consequences. It can leave you empty, discouraged and exhausted, with little energy left for God. Sound familiar? Maybe it's time to replenish. Start here.

1. Get away. "Come away by yourselves to a remote place and rest a while, for many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat" (Mark 6:31, MEV).
You don't have to use vacation days or drive far away to take a break with God. You can pick a place close by to relax and simply enjoy His presence. Here are some ideas: a community park, a pool, a hammock or rocking chair, a quiet corner of an ice cream or coffee shop, a bookstore or library, or a spot by the water. You might even bring some music or a journal.

If you like to be active, try going on a hike or bike ride, kayaking, taking a one-person picnic, gardening or painting. Getting away doesn't have to mean a change in your physical location, as long as you're getting away from daily stresses to spend time with God.

2. Be still. "Be still, and know that I am God" (Ps. 46:10, MEV).

Taking time to "be still" may be harder today than ever. So much screams for our attention in this fast-paced, digital world. In the Bible, the prophet Elijah heard God in the form of a "still small voice" (1 Kings 19:12). If we don't intentionally take time to turn down life's noise and be still, we could miss God's quiet message to our hearts.

Part of being still means taking a break from the demands of work, school and other activities and focusing on God. If you aren't intentionally setting aside one day a week to rest and worship, now is a good time to start.

Here's an Answer from Billy Graham on why God set aside a Sabbath day and how we can make it part of our lives:

replenish | re-PLEN-ish
(v): To fill up again; to restore or make complete again

3. Listen. "A wise man will hear and increase learning, and a man of understanding will attain wise counsel" (Prov. 1:5, MEV).

God often speaks to us in a still, small voice. Other times, He sends a meaningful message through a person or experience at the right moment. Yet, worry, stress and a growing "to-do" list can clutter our minds and keep us from listening.

This message from Billy Graham, "The Rest That Endures," may be just what you need to hear.

Watch this video of Ruth Bell Graham's poem, "Stillness," can also offer encouragement:


4. Meditate. "But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law he meditates day and night" (Ps. 1:2, MEV).

There are so many thoughts crowding our minds that it can be hard to focus. We're pulled in every direction, with this person or that thing demanding our attention. But then we come to a verse like Psalm 1:2, which tells us to meditate on God's Word. How exactly do you do that? And with such a hectic schedule?

Here are some practical ways to focus your attention on God, even when you're busy.

5. Be present. "Jesus answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed. And Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken from her"(Luke 10:41-42, MEV).

Do you find yourself going through the motions or so frazzled that you can't really enjoy a special moment? As the story of Mary and Martha in Luke 10 reveals, we can't afford to be so busy or distracted that we fail to hear God's voice, experience His presence, or honor His goodness.

Questions For Meditatation

From Tim Challies- Getting Better At Meditation:

If you are like me, you find meditation a difficult practice. You like the idea of it, but find the reality difficult to carry out. In my mind, “meditation” seems like an ethereal term, one that contains a good idea but without any clear structure. I struggle with it.

In his book Simplify Your Spiritual Life, Donald Whitney says, “When meditating on a verse of Scripture, it’s usually much easier to answer specific questions about it than to think about the text without any guidance or direction at all.” Which, I think, pretty much explains my frustration. He describes meditating on Philippians 4:8 and realizing that the verse offers helpful directions for the kinds of things he could meditate on for any passage in the whole Bible.

Philippians 4:8, which you’ve probably memorized at one time or another, says, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” Whitney studied the verse for a time, and came up with a list of questions that can be helpful for meditating on nearly anything in your life, but especially Scripture. Here they are:

• What is true about this, or what truth does it exemplify?

• What is honorable about this?

• What is right about this?

• What is pure about this, or how does it exemplify purity?

• What is lovely about this?

• What is admirable, commendable, or reputation-strengthening about this?

• What is excellent about this (in other words, excepts others of this kind)?

• What is praiseworthy about this?

And there you have it—8 questions that can help guide your meditation.

Fired Up From Meditating

Love this! "Warm Yourself at the Fires of Meditation" from Desiring God:

We were made to meditate. God designed us with the capacity to pause and ponder. He means for us to not just hear him, but to reflect on what he says.

It is a distinctively human trait to stop and consider, to chew on something with the teeth of our minds and hearts, to roll some reality around in our thoughts and press it deeply into our feelings, to look from different angles and seek to get a better sense of its significance.

The biblical name for this art is meditation, which Don Whitney defines as “deep thinking on the truths and spiritual realities revealed in Scripture for the purposes of understanding, application, and prayer” (Spiritual Disciplines, 48). And it is a marvelous means of God’s grace in the Christian life.

Meditation Made Christian

Since we were made to meditate, we shouldn’t be surprised to find that world religions have seized upon the activity, and new schools try to make use of its practical effects, whether to cultivate brain health and lower blood pressure. Christian meditation, however, is fundamentally different than the “meditation” popularly co-opted in various non-Christian systems. It doesn’t entail emptying our minds, but rather filling them with biblical and theological substance — truth outside of ourselves — and then chewing on that content.

For the Christian, meditation means having “the word of Christ dwell in you richly” (Colossians 3:16). It is not, like secular meditation, “doing nothing and being tuned in to your own mind at the same time,” but it is feeding our minds on the words of God and digesting them slowly, savoring the texture, enjoying the juices, cherishing the flavor of such rich fare. Meditation that is truly Christian is guided by the gospel, shaped by the Scriptures, reliant upon the Holy Spirit, and exercised in faith.

Man does not live by bread alone, and meditation is slowly relishing the meal.

Meditation Day and Night

aybe it’s the multiplied distractions of modern life, and the increased impairments of sin’s corruption, but meditation is more the lost art today than it was for our fathers in the faith. We are told, “Isaac went out to meditate in the field toward evening” (Genesis 24:63), and three of the more important texts in the Hebrew Scriptures, among others, call for meditation in such a way that we should sit up and take notice — or better, slow down, block out distractions, and give it some serious consideration.

The first is Joshua 1:8. At a key juncture in redemptive history, following the death of Moses, God himself speaks to Joshua, and three times gives the clear directive, “Be strong and courageous” (Joshua 1:6, 7, 9). How is he to do this? Where will he fill his tank with such strength and courage? Meditation. “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night” (Joshua 1:8).

God means not for Joshua to be merely familiar with the Book, or that he read through sections of it quickly in the morning, but that he be captivated by it and build his life on its truths. His spare thoughts should go there, his idle mind gravitate there. God’s words of instruction are to saturate his life, give him direction, shape his mind, form his patterns, fuel his affections, and inspire his actions.

What to Neglect, What to Let

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,with thankfulness in your hearts to God. (Col. 3:16 ESV)

Want to have a rich life? There are some things you will have to neglect, and some thngs you will have to let in in order to have one. Joe Bloom at Desiring God had this to say, based on Colossians 3:16

This verse from Colossians is so full of nourishment that there is no way to put the whole thing in our mouths at one time. It’s going to take a few blog bites to chew on it.

Today, all I want to do is chew on the first word: “let.” Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.

Another way to say it is, don’t stop the word of Christ from filling you to satisfaction. Or stop stopping it.

Here’s the thing: we are frequently impoverished spiritually by our own not letting ourselves be rich. On our shelves or bed stands or in our tablets or computers is a bank vault of “true riches” (Luke 16:11). But the pawnshop trinkets of worldly words are deceptively attractive. We can even be on our way to spend our time (the currency of life) on the riches in the vault and end up spending it in the pawnshops along the way.

What Paul wants us to do is neglect things that make us poor and not neglect things that make us truly rich.

What to Neglect

If the word of the Wall Street Journal or World Magazine or Wired Magazine or David Brooks or David Letterman or David McCullough, or John Mayer or John Steinbeck or John Paul II or John Calvin or Richard Dawkins or Richard Branson or Richard Baxter or Bono or Bach or blogs (even this one) dwells in you more richly than the word of Christ, you’re poor. You might be impressive at a dinner party or around a conference table or at small group. But you’re poor. You’re storing up dust.

You don’t need to be in the know.

You don’t need to be admired among the literati or respected in the guild. You don’t need an impressive net worth. You don’t need to be well traveled or well read. You don’t need to be conversant in Portlandia or know how many Twitter followers Taylor Swift has. You don’t need to be politically articulate, or up on the mommy blogs or the young, restless and reformed buzz. You don’t need to see the movie. You don’t need to read the novel. You don’t need to look hip.

What Not to Neglect

But what you desperately need, more than anything else in the world, is the word of Christ dwelling in you richly.

No one speaks like Jesus Christ (John 7:46). He is the Word of God and the Word that isGod (John 1:1) He is the Word of Life (1 John 1:1) and when he speaks, his word is living and active (Hebrews 4:12) and he shows you the path of life (Psalm 16:11) and his words give you hope and joy and peace (Romans 15:13).

Jesus is the one human being in all of history who speaks the very words of eternal life (John 6:68) and when you listen and believe his word, it becomes your life (Deuteronomy 32:47), your food (John 6:51), your drink (John 4:14) and your light (Psalm 119:105).

Only Jesus has the words of life. Only him. That’s why the Father pleads with us, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him” (Mark 9:7).

Everyone else’s words are dust in the winds of time and to chase them is to chase the wind (Ecclesiastes 1:14). The precious few helpful, enlightening, even mortal life-preserving words are only of superficial help to us and in the end will blow away.

The only exceptions are those that help us (and others) listen to the word of Christ.

Let It!

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Don’t neglect it. Listen to his word. Soak in his word. Memorize his word. Eat and chew it slowly. Don’t stop it from benefitting you.Neglect the TV, blogs, social networks, video games, theaters, magazines, books, hobbies, chores, and pursuits that keep you from the Vault. Neglect the impoverishing pawnshop trinkets of words that will turn to dust in a day, a week, or a few years.

When it comes to life, time really is money. Time is how you spend your life. Don’t waste it. Spend your best time buying “true riches.”

Meditation on Truth

“It is the unhurried meditation on gospel truths and the exposing of our minds to these truths that yields the fruit of sanctified character.”

      — Maurice Roberts  The Thought of God   (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1993), 11

HT Of First Importance

How Not to Read the Bible in 2013

Monday I encouraged everyone to read through the Bible in 2013. However, there's reading and then there's reading.

Matt Smethurst (via Peter Cockrell) tells us how NOT to read the Bible.

When it comes to daily (or not-so-daily) Bible reading, January 1 can be a welcome arrival. A new year signals a new start. You’re motivated to freshly commit to what you know is of indispensable importance: the Word of God.

Yet this isn’t the first time you’ve felt this way. You were entertaining pretty similar thoughts 365 days ago. And 365 days before that. And 365 days . . . you know how it goes.

So what’s going to make 2013 different? What, under God, will keep you plodding along in April this year when staying power has generally vanished in Aprils of yore? From one stumbling pilgrim to another, here are five suggestions for what not to do in 2013....

Read it all at the link.

Sitting Among the Weeds

Holy Saturday is a good day to "sit among the weeds." What does that mean, you ask?  The term comes from Teresa of Avila. To sit among the weeds, says  Bill Mounce is to think upon your sins.

.....The weeds are your sins, and her encouragement is to look at the weeds, sit in them, and learn from them. You see, the degree to which you do not understand your sin is the same degree to which it will control your life. But as you sit among the weeds, it is there that you will start to understand your sin and, more importantly, you will more fully understand God’s love and grace and acceptance.

When we are walking without stumbling too much, God’s love may not mean that much; who wouldn’t love a great person like me! But in the midst of your weeds you will know God’s love in ways you have never before. “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). God doesn’t love us because we are good. He loves us despite the fact that we are wicked.

A friend of mine says that the great sin of the church is moralism. We do something wrong, and we quickly try to do something right to make up for it. I say something that hurts my wife, so I run out and buy a lamp to make up for it. (Actually, this happened quite a bit when I was first married.) I neglect my son, so I run out and buy a toy for him.

There certainly is a time and a place to “make up” for a wrong, but what my friend wants us to do is to stop long enough to get a good look at the sin. Why did I want to say something that would hurt my wife? What is it about my life that makes me so busy I tend to neglect others. Sit among the weeds. Learn about your sin.

If I could mix my metaphors, consider the iceberg. When you and I sin, it is just the tip of the iceberg. We bump into it and stumble. The worst thing we can do is simply cover over the tip. We need to stop, go down under the water so to speak, and look at the base of the iceberg. Dealing just with the tip isn’t going to help you; seeing the iceberg for what it truly is, is the only way to gain a true understanding of what the iceberg of sin really is in our life and therefore be able to deal with it. Sit among the weeds.

When you sin, confess it quickly, do what you need to, but take a long look at the sin. It’s only the tip of the iceberg. And yet God loves you, knowing more about the iceberg of sin, which is part of your life, than you will ever know.

Contemplation of the Cross

Martin Luther on the True Contemplation of the Cross

"Let us meditate a moment on the passion of Christ....true contemplation is that in which the heart is crushed and the conscience smitten....You must be overwhelmed by the frightful wrath of God who so hated sin that he spared not his only begotten Son. What can the sinner expect if the beloved Son was so afflicted? It must be an inexpressible and unendurable yearning that causes God’s Son himself so to suffer. Ponder this and you will tremble, and the more you ponder, the deeper you will tremble.

The whole value of the meditation of the suffering of Christ lies in this, that man should come to the knowledge of himself and sink and tremble. If you are so hardened that you do not tremble, then you have reason to tremble. Pray to God that he may soften your heart and make fruitful your mediation upon the suffering of Christ, for we ourselves are incapable of proper reflection unless God instill it."

Hat Tip:- Desiring God

CRUX SOLA EST NOSTRIA THEOLOGICA!
 

Joining the Threefold Conversation

"The whole threefold life of the three-personal Being is actually going on in that ordinary little bedroom where an ordinary man is saying his prayers."

         - C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

"You don't have to get your Trinitarian Theology all sorted out before you can pray to the Trinity. Our God hears prayers. He does not wait for us to pass the Theology test before he listens to us praying....

,..Whether or not we understand the doctrine of the trinity, God has his Trinitarian theology in good working order long before we show up, and our prayers are founded on the Father, Son and the Spirit."

       - Fred Sanders, The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Change Everything, page 211

A Less Busy Heart

"The quest for a contemplative life can actually be self-absorbed, focused on my quiet and me. If we love people and have the power to help, then we are going to be busy. Learning to pray doesn't offer us a less busy life; it offers us a less busy heart. In the midst of outer busyness we can develop an inner quiet. Because we are less hectic on the inside, we have a greater capacity to love...and thus to be busy, which in turn drives us even more into a life of prayer. By spending time with our Father in prayer, we integrate our lives with his, with what he is doing in us. Our lives become more coherent. They feel calmer, more ordered, even in the midst of confusion and pressure."

- Paul E. Miller, A Praying Life

Hat Tip: A Less Busy Heart (Josh Harris)

Preach the Gospel to Yourself

Bob at In the Clearing: On Wellness talks about preaching the Gospel to yourself. Sounds like a good example to follow.

"Hey Self! Jesus died so you can be free, forgiven and whole. Get your eyes off yourself and put your eyes on Him. Repent and believe the Good News!"

You know, I actually feel better now. Maybe with a little practice I can actually believe it.

Thanks Bob!