Meditation

“Within your temple, O God, we meditate on your unfailing love.” (Psalm 48:9)

We all tend to have places of peace and calm to which we retreat. Our home is typically one place, but we tend to have other more hallowed and private spots – perhaps it’s a river house or a boat anchored far off shore. For me, it’s any form of wilderness enjoyed by bicycle or on foot, typically with a spectacular view, as the destination, where I can ponder life. Similarly, we all have our own visions of what heaven will be like that we embrace.

The Psalm writers reveal that they regularly meditated. Forms of the word meditate can be found about sixteen times in the Old Testament and only one valid times in the New Testament. It seems to be a priceless resource that is seldom spoken of or practiced today.

This morning, I visited an Episcopal Church and found myself challenged by a Rector who has months to live. He encouraged us to begin now to develop an imaginary place within ourselves that is for us a real place to actively commune regularly with God. Of course we all pray, but he is speaking of something different. Call it a hallowed little secret spot where we time and again return to actually sit or lay down within ourselves to talk with and meditate on Our Lord and Savior. And, the more real we make that place in our mind and heart the easier it is to return to that same reliable place often to commune with God. Obviously he is encouraging us to begin developing this place of meditation because it is exactly what he relies upon now to get him through what is ahead. And, as a gift, He is encouraging us to fully prepare for our journey.

Meditation is certainly is not new concept to a lot of religions, and it clearly is not a new to God’s Psalmists. But, it is not something often talked about or apparently practiced much today. It seems to be an almost lost yet invaluable treasure. What’s particularly exciting about the verse above is teaming it up with Paul’s reminder that, through the new covenant, we are all temples of God. So, the place where we can and should commune with God is within us.

Jesus taught in both Matthew and Luke that as we purge ourselves of demons or bad habits voids are left, and if not filled with something new, all the bad things return to become even worse things. We know conceptually that we need to fill such voids with Jesus, but that is easier said than done. And, that is specifically what the Rector was speaking to. We should actually let this ever growing void be converted into our meeting place with the Lord. It needs to progressively become a true place of meeting and comfort – so real in our mind and heart that we can even see ourselves eventually retreating to it and stepping from it right into heaven.

As we learn to follow our Lord, Savior and Shepherd from this world on into the next, meditation is bound to become more priceless than prayer. For, prayer is how we petition God for what we hope for according to His will, but meditation how we actually commune with God. As the living temples of God, it is within ourselves

“…O God, we meditate on your unfailing love.”