Meditating on God’s Word
In the United States, most people associate meditation with eastern religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism, but this is not correct. Meditation as a biblical practice existed thousands of years before it became popular on the platform of other religions.
The dictionary defines the word “meditate” as “to cogitate” or ” excogitate”, “think deeply”, “to dream up”, “to hatch”, and “to think out”. In Hebrew, the word “meditate” is Hagah which means to say the scriptures to yourself while consciously ignoring or shutting out every other thing.
It is like eating food (Jeremiah 15:16). Once you have found the specific Word you need, put it in your mouth and say it. God’s Word is food for our spirits. It affects every part of our lives. What we meditate on changes our emotions i.e. if it is negative, our emotions become negative. If we meditate on God’s Word, we will have good emotions like joy, gladness etc.
According to Proverbs 4:20 – 22, there are 3 steps to meditation:
Jews rock back and forth while meditating on the Torah. They mentally disconnect from the physical and focus on the Word. Meditation is a time to focus and shut other stuff out. It is a meal or meeting with God. It provides us with an opportunity to commune with God and get the Word He has for us. It is similar to mouth to mouth resuscitation. When we meditate, God breathes His life into us.
Jesus, our ultimate example, woke up early in the morning to spend time with the Father. He meditated on Scriptures. He had to know what the Father desired for him to do each day. This is why He had the power to deal with every situation that came His way.
Psalms 1:1-3 shows the benefits of meditating on God’s Word. Psalms 104:34 describes meditating on God as a sweet experience.
When we meditate, we have Spirit-to-spirit conversations with God. God lights the candle of our spirits. We become equipped and recharged to do His work. God sends His Word and like rain, it soaks and makes seeds grow.
Healing can also be accessed when we meditate. Psalm 107:20 and Ex 15:26 refers to God as our Physician. When we meditate daily on God’s Word and declare it to ourselves, our faith grows until we can speak to any mountain and move it (Mark 11:23).
We need to spend time in meditation. We must give it enough time for it to work. If we plant a tree, we don’t expect it to grow over night. It takes time of constant watering to get it to spring up.
Just like we need water to swallow tablets, our rejoicing in the Holy Spirit helps the Word we meditate to go down into our spirits. This “water” can come in the form of laughter, a song or dancing. As Proverbs 17:22 says a merry heart does good like medicine.
Speak God’s Word from your heart and not from your head. The Word gets in your heart when you spend time meditating on it.