How to Meditate for Ordinary Christians

Love & Meditation

It’s the LAST week of February. I don’t know about y’all, but this one’s flown for me. What that means is it’s time to wind down our “love” focus (who am I kidding — y’all know this whole blog is about Living the Story of God’s Love for Us;-)!

So what, you might ask, does Christian meditation have to do with love? Well, think about it this way — when you love someone, do you meditate on them? Do you think about them frequently, if not, in the case of early love and crush love — constantly? I think meditation is one of the ways we not only express our love for God but also grow our love for God.

Now here’s the problem — for me. Maybe for you? Somewhere along the way, Christian meditation became intimidating to me, something seemingly so high-minded only a monk with super-spiritual credentials could do. Somewhere along the way, Christian meditation became intimidating to me, something seemingly so high-minded only a monk with super-spiritual credentials could do. Click To Tweet

As a young Christian, I learned verses like…

Ps. 1:2: “But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night…”

and

Ps. 104:34: “Let my meditation be pleasing to Him; As for me, I shall be glad in the LORD.”

I was taught that meditation was simply slowing down and thinking about God, particularly by dwelling on Scripture.

When I read Eugene Peterson’s Eat This Book, I loved his analogy of meditation as like a dog with a bone:

“He gnawed the bone, turned it over and around, licked it, worried it. Sometimes we could hear a low rumble or growl, what in a cat would be a purr. He was obviously enjoying himself and in no hurry. After a leisurely couple of hours he would bury it and return the next day to take it up again. An average bone lasted about a week.”

Learning to Love Meditation

The key to rediscovering and reclaiming meditation as a spiritual practice is to bring it back down to earth. Click To Tweet It will also require that we do the seemingly impossible in our time — slow down and chew on a portion of Scripture.

“The key to rediscovering and reclaiming meditation as a spiritual practice is to bring it back down to earth.”

Here are 4 methods that have helped me learn to love meditation:

1. Read a portion of Scripture aloud several times.
2. Write the Scripture down in a prayer journal. (Or on prayer cards).
3. Play with the verses in a way that forces me to slow down and think about them. I am a kinesthetic learner in part, so using my hands to interact with the Word helps me to do this (Drawing, cutting and pasting, lettering, etc.)
4. Don’t overcomplicate it. The hardest part about meditation is the time and concentration it requires – much more than skimming a Facebook or Twitter feed but way less than watching a 30-minute sitcom on TV.

I AM NOT AN ARTIST:-)!
But that doesn’t mean I can’t “do art” and share it. In the same way, I am not a super-spiritual person, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do meditation. Below are 2 meditations I did with Bible journaling, my camera, and some digital software. The whole time I “played” with these, I thought about who God is and how much I love him.

Do you have some helpful methods that help you meditate on Scripture? I’d love to hear them.