Meditating on the Right Stuff

So my question to you is, “What do you meditate on?”  And no… I am not talking about the rather large man with the big belly.  Not that type of meditation. Christian meditation is about filling up your mind, not emptying it.

Filling up my mind?  Yes.  Filling up.  So what that means is that we are taking the time to reflect on what God is saying to us and obeying it.  How can this be done?  A few different ways:

Meditating  on Scripture:  Reading a passage or passages and taking the time to focus on those passages and allowing them to become applicable to us.  I do this a lot on days that I can not focus long enough for bigger passages and I will find a smaller one and let it take root in my soul.

Meditating to re-center your life:  This is taking the time to reflect on your life and to ask God to take those sins, anxieties, and other toxic thoughts away from you and to love on you.  I have always found this to be helpful because it allows God to de-clutter my mind and replace the toxins with his love.

Meditating on God’s Creation:  Have you ever stopped to think about the idiosyncrasies of everything that God has created around us?  It is absolutely amazing!  Spending time appreciating what God has done and soaking ourselves in that beauty can be rejuvenating and he wants to meet us there and enjoy it with us. 

Meditating on events:  Sometimes events in our world or events in our personal life seem to be confusing.  Spending time to ask God for clarification for these events can give us peace, understanding, and perspective in ways that we could never do on our own.  I admit, when dealing with my own life, re-entering the wound can be irritating and painful, but any form of healing has a cleansing pain.

So these are a few examples that I have read about and have done.  The key is that God is filling you as you are creating a spiritual and emotional space for him to operate in.  Whether he is filling you with his knowledge, wisdom, beauty, or love, we are seeking a closer bond with him.

That being explained, I will return to my question: what do you meditate on?  The truth is that most of my life I have struggled have with locking onto God.  I know that I am susceptible to negative thoughts due to what I have been through and Satan likes to grab hold of that, so that is why I try to keep this scripture in the back of my mind:

Philippians 4:8:

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.

I find that when I stray from meditating on the right things, that’s when my thought life becomes damaged.  Sometimes, even my relationship with God is damaged because of it.  This is because I dwell on a perceived offense, I misinterpret something that I should not have and meditate on it, or that I entertain and welcome into my life any other myriad of negative thoughts come to mind.  That’s why I try to focus on the things of God, because his thoughts do not exhaust my soul… they give it life.

I would like to challenge you to do that this week.  Consider one of the forms of meditation mentioned above and do it.  My hope is that in the shortest time possible that you will feel a deepened sense of intimacy and friendship with God.