What is Christian Meditation?
All the major religions of the world practice mediation. In Asia, meditation focuses on technique. Its practice includes repeating sounds, visualizing various forms, or deep and mindful breathing. Even if we know nothing about Buddhism, we all recognize the meditative chants of Buddhist monks. In the West, meditation is about content. For instance, we contemplate Bible verses or recite prayers (1).
Most teaching about relationship with God centers on prayer more than contemplation. Most of us have heard countless messages about how to pray, but few, if any, on how to meditate. I think that is unfortunate, because meditation is at least as important as prayer, if not more so.
The line between meditation and prayer is blurry, but generally prayer is supplication. Through prayer, we make our requests known to God. Prayer’s purpose is to ask God to do something. Meditation is not about asking but seeing. Its intent is revelation rather than action.
When I was younger, I heard Bible teachers talk about praying heaven down, and I set out to do just that. I thought if I prayed with great intensity, God would be with me and with the ones I was praying for. God seemed to visit, but the God who abides eluded me. I went from one spiritual high to another with valleys in-between. My constant failure to live on the mountaintop changed my understanding. Einstein said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results (2).” I fear religion can be an excellent home for this kind of madness.
Over the years, I concluded prayer does not make us closer to God. Such thoughts are ego, good ego, but still ego! Jesus said we are not to be like the gentiles in His day who thought God answered them because of their many prayers (Matthew 6:7). Seeking to move God is striving, and striving is the nature of the flesh. The nature of the Spirit is rest.
We hear messages telling us we need to pray more, and if we do, God will be near and give us the life we want. “You just need to do better” is a message that appeals to the ego. This was the message of the Pharisees in the time of Christ. It sounds good, but it is flesh masquerading as an angel of light. Therefore, our prayers should be seasoned with meditation. Prayer can be an effort to make heaven come down, but meditation is seeing it is already here.
Be still
Be still and know that I am God…. (Psalm 46:10 NKJV)
Cease striving, and know I am God…. (Psalm 46:10 NAS)
This brief passage is Christian mediation in a nutshell. It begins with stillness. When we think of stillness, we think of our environment. We assume meditation needs quiet times and places. At the top of this article, you saw a picture of a lady sitting in solitude by a beautiful lake. This would be a great place to meditate, but contemplation can also happen during a busy and trying day. Stillness is an attitude of the heart far more than a product of our surroundings.
Instead of “be still,” The New American Standard translation says, “cease striving.” Striving is the way of the ego. Humanity has two great endeavors, to become and to have. These come from our need for worth and completion.
The flesh sees itself in the process of becoming worthy, especially in relationship with God. We are not who God wants us to be today, but someday we will be! We are a work in progress. Yet, that work never seems to end. When self is the measure of worth, this is our fate. We are forever becoming, never finding rest. Rest comes not by arriving, but by turning from self to Christ. This is the heart of meditation. When we turn to Christ, we cease becoming and rest in who we are in Him. He becomes the measure of our worth. Our value is infinite in Christ. It cannot be added to or subtracted from. Living in infinite worth is rest.
The ego strives not only to be more, but to have more. We want a better life. If our life is bad, we want God to make it good. If we have little, we want God to give us a lot. Ironically, our standard is often what others have. If we gain the good life our neighbor has, we will be content. Yet, someone, somewhere is looking at us and wishing they had our life! More things, more power, more fame, it never ends. This is the fate of those who have a finite measure of life. We want more. We strive endlessly to be complete.
In meditation, the heart turns from the finite to the infinite. It is the great redefinition. Christ is our life, not having or not having. Togetherness with Christ makes us whole. The world teaches us we will be full when our dreams come true, so we should never let them die. (Our dreams are usually about being somebody or having something, a dead giveaway ego is the source.) So, we strive. Completion is a revelation. It is an awakening that occurs not when we get the life we want but when we lose all we measure our lives by for His sake. At wanting’s end we find rest.
Stillness can occur at any time and any place. It happens when we turn from ego to Christ, from becoming to being, and from finite gaining to infinite having. One of the great works of the Holy Spirit in our lives is conviction. The Spirit not only convicts us of what we do wrong but also what we see wrong. In fact, at the heart of repentance is a changed mind. If we see God’s works as leading us from evil to good, we will never find rest. His work is to lead us from the finite to the infinite. Only in this can we find rest.
Cease striving and know.
At the heart of Psalm 46:10 is knowing. A Jewish person in the first century wouldn’t define knowing the same way we do. The 21st century western mind associates knowing with getting our facts straight. We sit under a teacher who recites the facts, and we grasp them if we can pass a test.
The ancient Hebrews thought differently about knowing. The Hebrew word for knowing in this passage is yada. It is not getting our facts straight. It is participation. They believed knowing about something was not really knowing. For example, we can understand the sun and how it works, but until we feel its warmth on our face, we do not know it. The same goes in relationship with God. We can be a theologian, but until we experience union with God through Christ, we do not know God.
The Greek equivalent of the Hebrew yada is ginosko. John uses ginosko in I John 4.
He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. (1 John 4:8)
When I first read this passage, it puzzled me because I read it with a western mind. I couldn’t grasp the tie between knowing God and loving my neighbor. When I understood ginosko, it made perfect sense. God is love, and we prove we know Him by participating in who He is. We love!
The ancient Hebrew approach to knowing changes everything. When knowing is having the correct theological position, we often make enemies of those we reckon are wrong. Yet, when truth is a Person in whom we take part, we love our enemies, even if they are wrong (John 14:6). Loving becomes a better indicator of knowing than a good argument.
Peace is something we could all use during a trying day. The world says peace requires peaceful circumstances. We need to be on the mountaintop to be at peace. Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid (John 14:27). He invites us to take part in who He is, and He is peace. Peace is His gift to us, the gift of Himself. To experience His peace, we need to cease striving and participate. Quit trying to make your life a peaceful place and let God be your peace.
Togetherness with Christ is the source of our peace, joy, and love, and we are always together. Therefore, we should look for peace, joy, and love to make themselves known in the most unlikely places and times. The world needs a reason. We need a Person. God’s glory is to show His nature through you. Meditation does not seek to accomplish God’s glory. It is cooperating with God’s glory, and God’s glory is always so.
I AM WHO I AM.
God is infinite. In the book of revelation, we see a description of God’s eternal nature in Christ. “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,” says the Lord, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. (Revelation 1:8)” That which is eternal always has been, is, and always will be. The infinite is. At the burning bush (Exodus 3:13-14), when Moses asked God His name, the Lord said, “I AM that I AM.” The name describes God’s infinite nature. God is. This is a two-word description of God, yet comprehending them is the journey of a lifetime.
God’s nature is infinite. His joy, peace, and love are eternal. They always are and always will be. No finite power or circumstance can diminish who God is. The Lord invites us to take part in that which is so. Therefore, we cannot have a day bad enough or busy enough to exclude us from the infinite. The eternal transcends and defines the finite. Therefore, meditation cannot be about accomplishing, but seeing. It is becoming conscious of the eternal, that which is so. God’s great gift to us is to behold His face. It is a gift that surpasses all others, but few comprehend its value.
Meditation is flipping our paradigm. Our minds can change in an instant with God’s help. Where once we only perceived the finite circumstances, we see the infinite God. Everything looks different. What looked empty, we see as full. What we perceived as unworthy now has infinite worth.
When we put stillness, the Hebrew concept of knowing, and the infinite together, we can paraphrase our passage:
“Be still and participate in the God who is.”
You don’t have to be a monk to meditate. I used to assume that is what I needed to be. My monastery was the places I was alone with God, and God was there. However, there came a time when the Lord seemed to lose interest in my retreating from life. He showed me that His cathedral is out there in all of life, the good, the bad, and the ordinary. He was waiting there for me, and He always had been. I had to change my mind. I divided my life between the sacred and the ordinary. The Lord removed those distinctions two thousand years ago when God tore the veil in the temple.
How do we begin? Meditation is about changing your mind and seeing as God sees. How does the Lord see your day? I once presumed the busyness of the day conspired to keep me from God, and most of the time, it won. Yet is a busy day a day without God? Is a day of prayer somehow more sacred? The ego would answer yes to both. Again, our doing makes God who He is, the Present One. The Spirit rests knowing that God is, and nothing can change this. He is just as much the Present One on our busy days as He is on our days of retreat. He is in the times of prayer and in our hectic days. There is not a moment that is not sacred because of Christ.
A simple instant of awareness can change our perspective on an entire day. The flesh sees only emptiness, the Spirit only fulness. It is two different minds. We divide life into the sacred, the ordinary, and the profane. God doesn’t. The bad days are not a conspiracy, but an opportunity to see that the Lord is indeed the Present One and nothing can change that. The celebration of who God is never ceases. Meditation is joining the party!
(1) University of Oslo. "East/West differences in meditation: Spirituality or technique." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 13 May 2014. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/05/140513092401.htm>.
(2) There is little proof Einstein actually said this, but it is still a wonderful observation.
