Meditation – The Missing Link
Doug
This summer I’ve tried to read less and meditate more. I admit, it’s a real challenge for me. For one, I love to learn and it feels good to get through lots of books. And two, I enjoy reading through the Scriptures and checking off the number of chapters I’ve read because it makes me feel like I’m moving along and being spiritually productive. Thankfully, this summer, God has shown me my need to slow down–to slow down and learn to meditate on God’s Word.
Most of the summer I’ve spent meditating on the life of Elijah. Along with the Scriptures, I’ve been greatly helped by A.W. Pink’s book on Elijah. On page 51 in this book, Pink says this about the importance of meditation:
By passing too quickly from one verse to another, by failing to picture vividly before our minds the details before us, and by not taking pains to discover the practical lessons which may be drawn from historical events, we are greatly the losers. It is by putting ourselves in the position of the one we are reading about and thinking what we would most likely have done in such circumstances, that we receive the most help.
I have found this to be so true in my own experience. In fact, I believe the “missing link” between the instruction of God’s Word and the application of God’s Word is the meditation of God’s Word. The times that I have stopped to really chew on what I’ve read and put myself in the shoes of the one I’m reading about, I have come away with both a better understanding of the passage and a greater desire to live it out. But the idea of meditation as the missing link between instruction and application is true not only by way of experience. Notice what it says in Joshua 1:8 …
This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.
So brothers and sisters, if you’re like me with a mind that’s always on the move and ready to ”check off the boxes,” I encourage you this summer to slow down with me and meditate on God’s Word.
Written by Doug Wolter - Visit Website
July 14th, 2007 at 3:22 am
Great point Doug, and well taken!
July 14th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
How true. i have been encouraged to meditate more. Watson puts it like this: “Too often we walk away from teh Word of God cold-hearted because we fail to warm our souls at the fires of meditation.”
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