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Protestant Meditation
Protestant Meditation By Rick Reed, Geoffrey Kerslake, Ottawa Citizen September 25, 2011 3:02 AM Rev. Rick Reed is senior pastor at the Metropolitan Bible Church in Ottawa. Meditation can be a very important part of a Christian's spiritual growth, as long as it's the kind of meditation described in the Bible. Since different faiths have divergent views on meditation, let me give a brief summary of what meditation looks like for a Christian.
From a biblical perspective, meditation is sustained reflection. Meditating involves reviewing, rehearsing or replaying something in your mind. The mind does not become passive but stays very active. Rather than seeking to empty the mind, we seek to focus it. On what should a Christian focus his or her mind? The Bible tells us to meditate on two things: God's Word and God's works. First of all, we are to meditate on the Word of God, the Bible.
Following King David's example, we are to rehearse God's decrees, precepts and statutes (Psalm 119: 23, 78, 99). Practically speaking, a good way to do this is to memorize one or more verses and then repeatedly review them in order to gain insight and direction. We are also to meditate on God's works. Psalm 77: 12 highlights this when it says, "I will meditate on all Your works and consider all Your mighty deeds." To put this into practice, we might look up at the night sky and meditate on God's work of creation. We could look back at the cross of Christ and meditate on God's work of salvation. Or we can look over the course of our own lives and meditate on God's work of preservation. In some ways, meditating is like marinating. When we marinate foods, we soak them in a sauce until they take on a mouth-watering flavour. When we meditate, we soak our minds in God's Word and His works until we begin to take on a life-changing flavour.
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