Meditation is a practice on the rise throughout the world as people discover the numerous spiritual, mental, health and communal benefits from becoming still, being present, and listening. From classes and apps to the military and business meetings, meditation is everywhere. For the Christian, the question becomes, is meditation something we can or should practice? What are the benefits and is meditation even in the Bible?
Good news! Meditation is absolutely found in the Bible and has been practiced throughout Church history. While we will take months and years to flesh out the many ways to meditate and the different ways it can help, we want to first lay out what exactly meditation is, the Scriptural basis for this practice, and a few of the overarching ways meditation can help. This is by no means an exhaustive explanation of meditation and won’t give all the guidelines for practicing it, but is the foundation for what will be behind our exploration of meditation going forward. For us, mediation helps us connect with God and our own story, it helps us live better in the present moment, and it helps us follow Paul’s command to “take every thought captive to obey Christ” in 2 Corinthians.
We have also included a list of Scriptures at the end of this post that don’t appear in the main body of the text but help inform how we understand and practice meditation.
What Meditation Is
Meditation comes in many forms and can be practiced in many ways, but at its core meditation is a listening practice. It is prayer in which we listen to God, our own story, the world around us, our body and emotions, Scripture, and our inner dialogue.
When we meditate, we take time to be still, to engage silence, to pay attention to our breath (Ruah), to be present in the moment, and to listen to our own thoughts and the voice of God. When we come before God in this way, it’s like we join the prophets Isaiah and Samuel when they say to God, “Here I am.”[1]We aren’t coming in order to speak but in order to listen. We aren’t coming before God and our own life with an agenda, but simply to be present.
Meditation is a habit that trains us like exercise.
I don’t know about you, but with so much going on in my own life and the world around me, it can be difficult to listen. There is so much noise and so many distractions, endless lists of things to do and plan, that it can feel like the important stuff, the important relationships, and even my own thoughts and health can quickly get lost in the mix. When I can take a few minutes to slow down, breathe, and reconnect with God, I find I can get centered again. I find I can live better in the present where my life actually exists and where I experience God.
Meditation is a habit that trains us like exercise. Just like we need a strong physical body to ward off disease, illness, and injury to keep us healthy, we need ways to engage anger, disappointment, sadness, confusion, doubt, joy, desire, and every other emotion and experience under the sun.
In meditation, we anchor ourselves by focusing on something such our breath, a piece of Scripture, or a name of God. We aren’t clearing our minds but are concentrating on one thing. As thoughts arise, we don’t let them carry us off (as it’s so easy to allow our thoughts and emotions to do when we are in the heat of the moment), but we acknowledge them and return to our anchor. With continued practice, this forms a habit that we carry with us throughout our day.
When someone cuts us off in traffic, a co-worker upsets us, plans don’t go our way, we find anger or anxiety arising, we aren’t sure how to pay our bills, we get bad news from our doctor, or we are tempted to do something we know we don’t truly desire, we can return to our anchor in God. We can return to the present moment and the truth God has for us in this moment. When we can learn to focus in on one thing in meditation, and connect to the Holy Spirit inside of us in ever deeper ways, this helps us when we are in chaotic or high emotion situations to act out of the Holy Spirit’s guidance.
Connect with God
Meditation is a helpful practice for connecting us deeper with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
For example, Psalm 1 says,
“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.” [2]
When the Psalmist paints the picture of being a blessed person, he mentions meditating on God’s law day and night as an essential part of developing that character. The Hebrew word translated as meditate is hagah and can also be translated as ponder, muse,utter,or mutter.[3]In this sense, the Psalmist is explaining that someone who is going to live a life rooted in God and God’s ways is a person who has God’s Word constantly before them. They ponder it, mutter it, and meditate on it day and night.
A great sentiment but how do we actually do such a thing? I don’t know about you but I have to do things other than read my Bible day and night. I have to eat, sleep, spend time with my children, pay my bills, use the bathroom, and earn money to provide for my family. How do I have God’s law, God’s ways, before me day and night?
It comes down to what we allow to take root in our hearts and lives. What we give time and space to, what we seek, what we cultivate, is what grows in our lives. We talked about this in “The Art of Making Space.” What we focus on, concentrate on, ponder, muse, and meditate on is what is going to shape how we live our lives in every situation. The music we listen to, the movies we watch, the jokes we tell, the ideas and emotions that we entertain, the conversations we pour our energy into, the books we read, and the practices we engage is shape us. They become a part of us. This is why setting aside time to specifically focus in on God, what God is communicating into our life, and God’s teachings is so critical. If we want our life to be rooted in God, we have to make space for those roots to grow.
The beautiful thing about this of course is that God is not far off somewhere else. In fact, 1 Corinthians 6 tells us, “do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?”[4] We also know that Ruach, the Hebrew word for breath and Spirit, is central throughout the Bible, revealing that God breathes life into us every few seconds, sustaining us and blessing us. When we know Christ and are in Christ, the truth is that God is inside of us. God is close. Regardless of close God is, however, we can still miss it if we don’t take the time and space to open to this presence and explore the connection with the Holy Spirit inside of us.
…We can’t take our thoughts captive to obey Christ simply by believing that it’s a good thing to do. We have to cultivate it.
Taking time to breathe, concentrate on the present moment, listen for God’s voice, place Scripture at the forefront of our minds, and listen to our own lives will connect us with the Holy Spirit inside of us and train us to return to that connection when things feel like they are going off the rails or we have a difficult decision to make.
Such a connection will also help us live in the present because after all, the present is all we really have.
Live in the Present
Have you ever realized that the present is really the only place we can be? The past is gone, we can’t go back. The future, while in God’s hands, is not a place we can visit either. We experience life moment by moment. You and I only exist right here, right now. We are rooted in God’s promises of the future and don’t need to fear what is to come, but we aren’t there yet. We are right here. And if the Holy Spirit is inside of us as Paul insists in 1 Corinthians 6, then God is in this moment as well. This is the place and time we can experience God.
What we engage repeatedly over time is what becomes a habit.
The struggle is that our world isn’t set up for living in the present well. We are trained to mainly live in the future. We have bills to pay, retirement to save for, projects to get done, people to see, and worries to worry about. And when we aren’t living in the future, we are bombarded with stuff that will take us away from truly engaging the present moment. Television, social media, and endless apps easily draw us away from the here and now. When we aren’t distracted by the future or living through a device in the present, we can also get lost in past regrets, losses, frustrations, pain, or lost dreams. It is much, much easier to live in any place and time than the place and time we are actually in. The problem is, we were created to live in the present, not the past, future, or a disengaged present. God, and our fullest life, is right here and now.
Our spouse, children, friends, and family need us to be present. They need our full, true selves to be available and engaging. When we meditate, we practice being in the present. Anchoring in our breath or a piece of Scripture and remaining with it whatever thoughts may come up trains us in how to be present in light of distractions. Being aware of our thoughts, feelings, and physical presence in the moment trains us to stay in the present moment rather than getting carried off to the past or the future. What we engage repeatedly over time is what becomes a habit. I can think of few better habits than being hyper-present in this moment.
Jesus was really good at this. He hears blind people and outcasts calling his name in the midst of crowds. He sees Zacchaeus hiding in a tree. He feels one woman touch His robes in the midst of a crowd. He sees, hears, and understands the people around Him and the situations He was in. How does He do this? He was, and is, an expert at being present.
While we could simply point to the fact that He is God to explain this ability, I think it is something He cultivated. For example, consider His journey into the wilderness at the beginning of His public ministry. The Gospels tell us that after the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus, he went to the desert for 40 days. Have you ever thought about what He was doing out there for 40 days? I am pretty sure he wasn’t talking to God 24/7. He also wasn’t just out there skipping rocks and waiting for the time to pass. He must have spent a significant portion of this time listening, deepening His connection with the Holy Spirit inside of Him, and better understanding His own mission and upcoming ministry.
We also see Him consistently leaving noise and crowds to be silent and to pray. He practiced being present and this practice made Him a blessing to everyone He met.
On top of connecting with God and training us to be present, however, meditation also helps us better control our own minds.
Take Thoughts Captive
In 2 Corinthians 10, Paul writes,“We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ.”[5]
Our minds are fascinating places. Our brains are truly amazing in what they can do. They can also be terribly distracting. When we want to do one thing, they remind us of 50 other things we could be thinking about or doing. When we want to read, our mind won’t stop singing “Baby Shark” on endless repeat. When we want to follow God, our minds remind us of endless temptations that can take us off track.
Besides thoughts, our minds also flood us with various emotions from one moment to the next. When we get cut off in traffic, our mind can throw us into a rage and string together tirades we didn’t think we were capable of.
For many of us, we go through life allowing our minds and emotions to simply carry us in whatever directions they choose. We overeat, we get lost in meaningless thoughts and rabbit trails, and we allow anger or fear to determine our reactions.
When we meditate in these ways, we discover over time that we are more in control of not just our times of meditation, but all of our life.
What Paul tells us, however, is that it’s important we take our thoughts captive to obey Christ. This means that rather than allowing what the world has taught us to run the show, we intentionally train ourselves to think and act out of God’s truth. Now we are really getting to Psalm 1’s teaching about meditating on God’s law day and night. We take everything our mind thinks and our body offers and transform it to honor God and the lives God created us for.
This isn’t something we can simply decide to do because we believe we ought to do it. We have to practice it. Just like you can’t build muscles by looking at them and hoping they grow, or by wishing they were bigger, and we can’t bend over and touch our toes simply because we believe being flexible is a good thing, we can’t take our thoughts captive to obey Christ simply by believing that it’s a good thing to do. We have to cultivate it.
It’s ultimately a practice of surrender as we turn more and more over to God.
Meditation is one way we can cultivate such an important practice. When we sit and focus on one thing such our breath or a piece of Scripture, allowing other thoughts and emotions to pass by rather than engaging them and letting them carry us away, we start to take control again. When we turn them over to God, allow Scripture to root deep, and learn to connect with the Holy Spirit moment by moment, then our lives and everything that comes up will slowly begin to obey Christ more and more.
When we meditate in these ways, we discover over time that we are more in control of not just our times of meditation, but all of our life. God is shaping us more and more. We are more in touch with the Holy Spirit and look more and more like Jesus. It’s ultimately a practice of surrender as we turn more and more over to God. We hear God better, see God better, and the Holy Spirit has more freedom to transform us into the image of God we are created for.
God’s Work in Us
What’s beautiful about this whole practice is that it’s not something we are earning. It’s not a “good work” that we can boast in. Meditation is a prayerful practice of listening. As we grow in connection with God, learn to live in the present, and take thoughts captive to obey Christ, it’s actually God doing all the work. Our meditation practice of being present and listening is simply our surrender to God to do this work.
As CS Lewis famously wrote in The Great Divorce, “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’”[6]In daily life, we either desire our will to be done or God’s will to be done. Meditation is a physical, mental, and spiritual practice where we communicate to God with our entire being, “Thy will be done.”
When we can learn to be present to the Holy Spirit and present to our own lives in this moment as we submit to God in prayer and in action, I believe God’s will truly will be done in our lives.
Scriptural Examples of Meditation (All ESV)
Genesis 24:63 And Isaac went out to meditate in the field toward evening. And he lifted up his eyes and saw, and behold, there were camels coming.
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 will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.
Philippians 4:8-Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. 9 What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.
Psalm 4:4-Be angry, and do not sin; ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent.
Psalm 63:6-when I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night;
Psalm 104:34-May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord.
Psalm 119:15-I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways.
Psalm 119:97-99-Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day. Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation.
Psalm 119:148-My eyes are awake before the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promise.
Psalm 143:5-I remember the days of old; I meditate on all that you have done; I ponder the work of your hands.
Proverbs 4:20-21-My son, be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Let them not escape from your sight; keep them within your heart.
Proverbs 6:6-Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise.
Luke 2:19-But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.
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[1]Isaiah 6:8 & 1 Samuel 3:4
[2]The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ps 1:1–3.
[3]Robert L. Thomas, New American Standard Hebrew-Aramaic and Greek Dictionaries : Updated Edition (Anaheim: Foundation Publications, Inc., 1998).
[4]The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), 1 Co 6:19.
[5]The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), 2 Co 10:5.
[6]Lewis, C.S. The Great Divorce. New York: Harper Collins, 2001, ch. 9 pg. 75.
