A Pathway to Encounter
In my last blog, I suggested that to be filled with the knowledge of God’s love and His heart for us as a Father we must re-position our lives and continually meditate on and consider the word of God regarding this topic. Now, I want to help us practically develop a lifestyle of meditation, which is a pathway to encounter.
I am defining meditation as focusing on one verse or a small portion of scripture for blocks of time over prolonged periods of time (several days out of a week) in posturing the heart to receive revelation of Jesus. Here, I offer several reasons why you would do this, and then give instruction on how to practically do it.
Meditation is one of the doorways into the heart of God. Continual meditation on the word of God fills us with the thoughts of God and delivers us from the wrong thoughts that we hold about God (i.e. the orphan mentality).
I want to propose that the Bible is deeper in each verse than it is long. Let us stop trying to read the bible through in a year just to appease our consciences, and let us begin to slow down our souls and seek to encounter the living word of God through His written word!!
If you meditate on scripture, then you will prosper for there is a blessing imparted to those who will meditate on God’s word (Psalm 1:1-3; Jeremiah 17:5-10).
As we meditate on scripture we are transformed from glory to glory, being strengthened with the nature of God. We become what we behold (2 Corinthians 3:18).
As we set aside time to meditate we allow the Holy Spirit to search our thoughts and attitudes (ways) (Hebrews 4:12; Jeremiah 17:10). As we submit, our paradigms change, and we begin to correctly perceive God and His ways (I Corinthians 2:6-16; Isaiah 29:16).
Now, that you are beginning to see the intrinsic value of meditation, I will construct the foundation for practically meditating on scripture. This is not the only way to meditate, but I have found that this method is very helpful in staying focused on a small portion of scripture for a prolonged period of time.
- Set aside a two-hour block of time to meditate on one verse or very small portion of Scripture.
- Take time to just wait and be with the Lord to listen to Him speak about the verse (I generally spend the first 30 minutes of a two-hour block waiting).
- Focus on a small phrase at a time.
- Read it, Write it, Say it, Sing it, Pray it, and Receive it (RWSSPR). Break down the time block into 15 or 30 minutes increments. Pray in tongues 15 minutes, sit silent for 30, jot down thoughts for 30, etc. while reading it, writing it, etc.
- Do not spend the whole time writing. Allow your soul to wrestle so you can be crucified to your own human effort.
- Do not spend extended periods of time within your meditation time on other verses. Simply reference them.
- Ask questions! Ask the Lord questions, even if you think they are unanswerable.
- Talk to the Lord about the verse. Turn it into conversation with God. Also, pray in tongues intermittently.
- Emphasize different words as you say it.
Take a sheet of paper and fill it out like this:
- The left hand column can be for tasks. Tasks are things that come into your head that need to be done while you are meditating. Write down your distractions and do them when your meditation time is over (II Corinthians 10:4-5).
- The last two or three lines of the paper are for pursuits. Pursuits are topics you want to study later. For example if you were meditating of Romans 8:15 you may want to go study the Father heart of God throughout scripture.
- Use the main space in the middle of the page to journal your thoughts on the verse you plan to meditate on.
This is very simple, but if you give yourself to it you will find your heart awakened to the love of God and you will set yourself to encounter the living God who wants to meet with you more than you want to meet with Him.