Nobody wants to have stale devotional times in the Scripture. So let me tell you a secret that’s not really a well-kept secret at all (and nor should it be). If you want your heart to be stirred with delight in the Word, meditate on the Word.
Meditate sounds strange to some ears, because the Eastern practice of meditation involves emptying your mind. That’s not what I mean, and that’s not what the Bible means, by the term “meditate.”
In Psalm 1:2, the blessed man’s delight is in the Torah, and on God’s law “he meditates day and night.” The verb doesn’t mean trying not to think. It’s to deliberately think about what one reads. It’s to ponder, to mull over.
Sometimes you may wake up ready to read the Scripture because delight has led you there. But other times (even most times?) you come to the Scripture by discipline in search of delight. As we reflect on what God has said in his Word, our souls are being nourished by the truth and wisdom of God.
Meditation requires us to slow down. We live in a hurried age, a busy cultural atmosphere. But a hurried and hectic life will not cultivate a healthy spiritual life. Attention spans are undermined by a TikTok way of thinking. The role of the Word in our lives is not meant to be sporadic, occasional, or peripheral.
The blessed man in Psalm 1 meditates “day and night” (v. 2), which highlights the occupying role that the Word has in his mind and life. Meditation requires sustained attention, and sustained attention requires time. In a culture eager to distract you with a dozen different things at any given moment, meditation on the Word is countercultural.
Charles Spurgeon said, “The more you read the Bible, and the more you meditate upon it, the more you will be astonished with it. He who is but a casual reader of the Bible, does not know the height, the depth, the length and breadth of the mighty meanings contained in its pages.”1
You want to be bored with Scripture? Then be an infrequent reader of it—and when you do read it, do so only casually.
Do you want to delight in the Word and rejoice in what God has revealed? Then read a passage and think about it. Re-read it and prayer for help. Ask questions of the text. Try to memorize a verse or more from it.
The believer in Psalm 1 knows that in a world filled with suffocating deceptions, the Word is oxygen. Surrounded by poisoned wells, the believer knows Scripture is fresh water for the soul. So he lingers, meditates.2
By meditating on the Word, we are orienting our hearts to heavenly glories and eternal truths. We are willingly subjecting our fickle selves to what stabilizes and roots us. Meditation is our unhurried pursuit of knowing God through what God has said. Let us, then, delight in the Word through meditation on the Word.
An exercise to try:
Offer a brief prayer for help to see and savor what you read.
Read a passage (not just a verse or two).
Now read it again—slowly, even out loud, marking things with a pen.
Ask questions and try to answer them. What does this passage teach about the Lord? What does it teach about people? Is there a warning to heed? Is there an exhortation to receive? How does this passage help you hope in God? Does this passage make you think of other texts that work well as cross-references? How might this passage point us to Christ?
From the passage you read, is there a specific verse that especially stood out to you? Try committing it to memory. (Write it down. Repeat it out loud several times and return to it later in the day.)
Pray again, letting the content of what you’ve read prompt the content of your prayer.3
I left off the step about making coffee first, because some things can be assumed without needing to be said.
From the beginning of Spurgeon’s sermon “Christ Our Passover,” which he preached December 2, 1855.
Here is a poem based on Psalm 1:
Check out Donald Whitney’s excellent book Praying the Bible.
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