Focus: Let's Meditate!

Text: Gen.24:63

"Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the eventide."

Meditation seemed to be Isaac's personal habit and culture. He must have learned it from his parents. The word in Hebrew used for meditate here means to bow or to muse reflectively. It connotes an attitude of prayer. Isaac paused to ponder, to peruse, to contemplate, or to cogitate. 

The art and science of meditation is something good for the soul, and as I always say, meditation is truly medication. Meditation is a spiritual activity and culture. It is the exercise and experience of the mind. It's the way to the harmony of one's personality and the symphony of a graceful heart, of a glowing maturity and a beautiful spirituality. It deepens one's spiritual life. 

It is a way of letting ventilation into one's mind and the light of God's word shine into one's inner being. This spiritual ventilation takes care of the spiritual cobwebs in one's soul.

It was in the place of meditation that Isaac came into contact with his wife. Isaac grieved for his mother's death until Rebecca came into his life and became his wife. God said to Joshua, "This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success" (Josh.1:8). 

There is no substitute for meditation, and it is not something to be done in a hurry. Meditation takes time; it is a matter of day and night. It should be integrated into one's daily curriculum and practice. People who make history take time to think. Only those who think advance civilization. How can life ever get better with people everywhere acting so thoughtlessly?

The psalmist says of the man who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly, or stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of the scornful, "But his delight [is] in the law of the LORD, and in his law doth he meditate day and night." For such a person, God's word creates his wonder. He is wowed by divine truth. He delights in what God says. He longs for God's utterance, for God's speech.

Truly divine wonder causes one to meditate. Then meditation leads to revelation, and revelation produces conviction in one's soul and confidence in one's heart.

It is in the place of meditation that character is molded or formed, and I am talking about meditation on the word of God.

I boldly declare that the word of God is the apparatus for character formation. Meditation is a spiritual discipline; it brings about a vertical orientation of mind that impacts on our horizontal life and relationships. Meditation begets spiritual revolution, which is preceded by an explosive revelation in one's mind, resulting from the meditation.

Meditation is a way of internalizing divine truth and encountering God's reality.

It requires intense focusing and a great deal of solitude. In meditation we muse pensively, growl, murmur, mutter, meditate, or actively ponder. It's an inward discipline and a spiritual exercise. It causes an inward explosion, and a revolution of a spiritual kind. By it we hear the "still small voice." 

We come out from the place of meditation utterly touched and radically transformed, because in that place we behold the face of God and embrace His truth. Yes, we believe to behold, and we behold to become and behave! Let's imbibe the culture of meditation, for it's the secret of loads of bliss and blessings. Meditation is a goldmine of spiritual wealth.

by Bishop Moses E. Peter