Volume 45   Number 2                                                                                    October 2002

We spend most of our lives," said Evelyn Underhill, "conjugating three verbs: to want, to have and to do. But none of these verbs has any ultimate significance until it is transcended by and included in the fundamental verb, to be."

For the Christian, the essence of the fundamental verb to be is to be like Christ. In Philippians 2:5 Paul admonishes us to "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ: " Implied in this admonition is the fact that our minds, and therefore, we, are not always like Christ. If this is true, then a very important Christian task is the reorientation of the mind, our thinking, so that it becomes "Christ like". We must replace our thoughts with godly thoughts; our ways with His ways. But how?

The exchanging of our thoughts for His is to be viewed as a process. A process which feeds on the Word of God and must always be filtered by and through that Word. A process the Psalmist refers to in Psalms 1:2 when he writes: "But his delight is in the law of the Lord,- and in his law does he meditate day and night. " Here we have the divine exchange, the mind renewal, the mental regeneration laid before us. His Word shows and tells us how to think, but it is meditation that truly and forcefully implants those thoughts not only in our minds but in our hearts as well. As we study His Word we learn what we should think, but it is as we meditate on His Word we actually think on those things and in those ways. And this explains why many more know what God wants them to think than ever achieve that Christ-like mind for themselves.

To meditate means "to care for, to ponder, to attend to" from the Greek word meletao. Scriptural meditation is not sitting and contemplating world philosophy nor is it succumbing to chants and repetitions. Such things open our minds to Satan's aggression. Meditation is also more than the study of God's Word. New Testament meditation is rather the action of contemplating, recalling, reflecting, ruminating or thinking deeply upon the riches of God and His Word. In study we walk over and through the pages, but in meditation we step into them. Meditation is literally the detaching of our minds from the distractions of Satan and this world and reattaching them to the thinking and thoughts of Christ. It is the process through which we allow the Word of God to be not something we simply read, but something we ingest. Christian meditation internalizes and personalizes the Scripture so that its truth can affect our thought, our attitudes, our actions and our lives. Therefore, when we try to gain the mind of Christ or to be like Christ in the absence of meditation, we will find frustration and never achieve the essential goal.

Yet, for many, meditation is a lost, or more likely, a never developed part of their Christianity. And that should not surprise us as we live in a society that wants everything fast. It shouldn't surprise us that the culture which gave us instant everything would also want to give us instant "Mind of Christ". But such is not the way of the Lord. Quiet meditative time has always been a key ingredient in the Lord's recipes. It is an invaluable companion of godly men and women. Time for rumination, quiet away from distraction are God's enrichers of our minds.

While many may struggle with the discipline of reading and studying God's word, I fear far more struggle with the discipline of meditation. Where we see not simply how much we can read, but how fully we can glean every morsel of spiritual nourishment from each admonition. Godly meditation is a difficult, time consuming work and therefore is largely avoided. Next to fasting, it may be our most neglected resource. Yet the true value of reading God's word, of studying the lives and sayings of God's holy men comes only as we take time to extract the nourishment from them by chewing and digesting God's holy food so that its saving strength can pass into our inner most being.

Meditation is the shovel which allows us to not simply spade the surface, but mine the deep gems from the depths of God's Word. In Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster describes Christian meditation as "sinking down into the light and life of Christ and becoming comfortable in that posture. The perpetual presence of the Lord . . . moves from a theological dogma to a radiant reality."

Does meditation play a central role in your spiritual life? Allowing you to sink down into Christ's light and life, allowing Christ to become a radiant reality. It is vitally important to structure some definitive time every day for reflection, introspection and meditation. Focusing our minds on Christ for at least a few minutes each day. Being silent at day's start knowing God should speak first, being silent at day's end knowing God should have the last word. If we don't, we continue like rocks skimming across life's surface, never slowing down enough to truly sink in and reach life's true depths.