Mindfulness and meditation are buzzwords these days. Countless apps, podcasts, and YouTube channels are dedicated to teaching you and leading you in these practices.
But, is meditation fit for a Christian? Is meditation even biblical?
As you’ll learn in The Ultimate Guide to Christian Meditation, Christian spiritual formation has deep roots in meditation. Jesus himself modeled the importance of regularly withdrawing into solitude.
Check out The Ultimate Guide to Christian Meditation to learn all you need to know about how to practice meditation biblically!
Learn about breath prayer and how it can lead you into deeper communion with God. Also, receive five breath prayer cards to cut out and use today!
Table of Contents
What does meditation mean?
According to Psychology Today, “Meditation is a mental exercise that trains attention and awareness. Its purpose is often to curb reactivity to one’s negative thoughts and feelings, which, though they may be disturbing and upsetting and hijack attention from moment to moment, are invariably fleeting.”
In terms of Christianity, “meditation is a devotional practice that we engage in with God’s help to know Him better, love Him more, experience closer communion with Him, and live for His glory” (Thomas A. Tarrants, C.S. Lewis Institute).
What is Christian meditation?
For the Christian, meditation isn’t a personal journey to self-actualization. It isn’t a quiet quest to discover your most true self. It isn’t even primarily a tool to cultivate rest or reduce stress.
Instead, meditation for the Christian is for the purpose of reflecting, remembering, and receiving the Word of God. As Tim Mackie from the BibleProject shares in the video, “Ancient Jewish Meditation Literature,”
“In Hebrew, the word meditate (hagah) means literally to mutter or speak quietly. The idea is that every day for the rest of your life you slowly, quietly read the Bible out loud to yourself and then go talk about it with your friends, pondering the puzzles, making connections, and discovering what it all means.”
The story of the Bible — from Genesis to Revelation — is so dense and multi-layered that it requires a lifetime of study and a lifetime of meditation. It is in Scripture-driven meditation that we can actually begin to process the knowledge we accumulate through study and find our rest in Him. As Alisa Keeton says, “We are not hungry for lack of knowledge, but for lack of intimacy.”
Thus, biblical meditation is one of the tools we can use to develop greater intimacy with the Scriptures and ultimately the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as we process the His Word.
Christian Meditation on God's Love
What does the Bible say about meditation?
The Bible is full of references about meditating on the Scriptures. Here are a few:
“This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it.” – Joshua 1:8
“…but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.” – Psalm 1:2
“I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways.” – Psalm 119:15
“On the glorious splendor of your majesty, and on your wondrous works, I will meditate.” – Psalm 145:5
In these verses, and many others, we learn that the purpose of meditating on Scripture is to follow God’s law, delight in Him, recall His glory, and fix our eyes on His ways. Through biblical meditation, we can be like Mary, who treasured all the wonderful things about Jesus in her heart (Luke 2:19).
Christian Meditation for Anxiety
How is biblical meditation different from prayer?
John Piper, in his book, When I Don’t Desire God: How to Fight for Joy, writes: “Prayer and meditation correspond to God’s Spirit and God’s Word. Prayer is our response to God in reliance on his Spirit; and meditation is our response to God in reliance on his Word” (p. 148).
He also writes, “Thus, even as the Spirit and the Word are inseparable in our lives, so prayer and meditation are inseparable” (p. 149). Often, one practice may flow into the other.
For example, imagine you are meditating on Matthew 5:3, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
You begin by pondering what it means to be blessed or poor in spirit. You may read other passages to remind yourself how Jesus describes the kingdom of heaven. You read the creation narrative in Genesis 1 and 2 to define what it means to be blessed.
As you meditate, you begin praying for your neighbor who is poor in spirit. You also pray for wisdom to help serve those who feel forgotten and neglected. What began as restful, focused attention on God’s Word became an intimate conversation between you and Him.
In other words, meditation is the kindling that leads to deep prayer or conversation with God.
How is Christian meditation different from eastern meditation?
Generally, eastern religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism practice meditation with the goals of enlightenment, self-discovery, nirvana, and a connection to the universe.
In contrast, Christian meditation is practiced with the purpose to fill the mind with God’s truth from the Bible, to deepen our connection with God, and to be formed by God’s Word.
In Christian meditation, there are no levels of attachment to God. We do not have to work our way to unity with God because our salvation is already found in Jesus.
Christian meditation is a helpful practice to the Christian faith, but it is not the only or the most important way to know our Creator and Savior.
For more on the difference between eastern meditation and Christian meditation, read this short article from the C.S. Lewis Institute.
21-Days of Biblical Meditation
If you’re tired of being distracted and disconnected, and you feel like peace is hard to come by, join us for a different type of faith and fitness challenge: Exercise Your Mental Muscle – a 21 Day Biblical Meditation Challenge.
How to facilitate a productive Christian meditation
Implementing the practice of Christian meditation begins with understanding your WHY. If you don’t know why you are taking this time with the Lord, you will easily give up when it gets hard or feels unproductive.
What is your WHY?
– Why do you want to start this practice?
– Why will you carve out this sacred time?
– What do you hope the outcome will be?
Examples:
– To be in touch and in tune with the Shepherd who guides me
– Because God is worthy of my firstfruits (Matthew 6:33)
– I find peace, clarity, and proper spiritual alignment when I spend time meditating on God (Psalm 143:8)
– I trust God, and I want to learn from Him.
– To take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5)
– To prepare to walk faithfully through the day.
– To honor the Father with my whole self
– To seek the Father’s will (John 5:30)
Entering into Christian Meditation
Have you identified your why?
Now it’s time to learn HOW to approach the practice of Christian meditation. There are many ways to practice meditation.
Here is one way to structure your time of biblical meditation:
1. Ask the Lord to help you imagine the both of you meeting together.
This can serve as an encouragement to be consistent in meeting with God in meditation.
2. Pick a time of day to meditate on God and the Word.
3. Pick a space to practice meditation.
4. Get rid of distractions.
5. Begin with deep breathing and return to your breath if you become distracted.
6. Open with a Psalm and prayer:
Psalm 143:8 “Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust. Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.”
Pray: Lord, make me hear your faithful love this morning. I trust you. Teach me how to walk as I offer my heart, my soul, my mind, and my time to you. Teach me how to walk today.
This prayer reminds me to hear for God’s guidance because I am showing up to listen to the One who loves me. I trust Him, and I want to learn from Him.
7. Embrace the silence.
You don’t have to go to biblical meditation with an agenda, checklist, or even a prayer journal. Biblical meditation can be as simple as sitting in silence and solitude with the Father. This blog post shares five different methods of biblical meditation.
8. Remember your why if you feel like nothing “happened” during your meditation.
Biblical meditation is not a performance (for you or God). You are simply opening up your heart to the presence of God. Any time you spend in His presence, meditating on His Word is not in vain!
Guide to Breath Prayer
Learn about the practice of breath prayer in this free downloadable guide! Start doing breath prayer today!
“Our time is our life, and our attention is the doorway to our hearts.”
Two Challenges For Practicing Christian Meditation
For 21 days, you’ll reset your body and mind by drawing closer to God and dropping the “weight” that’s weighing you down.
Each day you’ll read a Biblically-based devotional, watch a short video teaching, and participate in an experiential activity to help reduce stress. Together, these activities will take you less than 20 minutes per day, so you can easily fit them into your schedule!
No more hustling harder or packing more things on your to-do list to earn your worth. In this challenge, you’ll spend 21 days training your brain in the habit of mindfulness in a scripturally-based, Christian context.
We’re not going to ask you to move more, count calories, or achieve traditional fitness goals. Instead, you’ll learn how to find joy in quiet, hear the voice of God more clearly, and get comfortable being still and being loved by God, just as you are.
