Christian Parenting - Meditating on Scripture

The formation of our spiritual life and the life of our children and grandchildren is of great concern to many parents.  This is admirable.  But how can we help to shape ourselves and our children with habits, skills and ways of life that will benefit each person during their lifetime?  One of the disciplines that is beneficial is Meditation.

Meditation is part of a set of disciplines related to the Word of God.  For those unfamiliar with mediation as a discipline, let me compare it to eating a tasty meal.
At its best, the meal stretches over 5, 7 or maybe even 9 courses and lasts for 3 or 4 hours.  My most favorite memory is of a meal that was 11 courses and lasted 10 hours.  It was a bountiful cornucopia of food, flavor and delight.  So it can be with the Word of God, where each reading is carried with a person, and chewed upon for hours or days, savoring every word, phrase or concept.

In Joshua 1:8 God tells us to meditate on his Law day and night,

so that you may be careful to do everything written in it.

He then goes on to say that meditation combined with obedience will result in prosperity and success.  The Psalms open up with these wonderful words,

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the way of the wicked, stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers, 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, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither.  Whatever he does prospers. (Psalm 1)

In the first psalm, the writer is reflecting on the difference between 2 kinds of people. Those who ruminate on God's word and those who don't.  The implication is clear. Those who think on it, and allow it to permeate their thoughts, will become doers of God's ways, while the other won't.

Another analogy for understanding mediation would be to picture a cow chewing the cud.  Slowly, repeatedly chewing on the grass to get every bit of nutrient out of the meal.  For the bakers out there, it might be kneading the dough, slowly and over a long period of time immersing your fingers into the dough and working it into a useful lump.  All of these are word pictures to understand the discipline of meditation.  The goal of Scriptural mediation is to allow the Word to penetrate deep into our hearts, so that it can work on us.

One of the best ways to meditate on a given passage of Scripture is to ask the question: Where is Jesus in this passage? Or What is the gospel here?  These twin questions will help to focus us on the true purpose of the Word - to point to Jesus (John 5:39).  Furthermore, they will provide ample opportunities to think long and hard as one reflects on how the story of the rape of Dinah in Genesis 34 or the various sacrifices in the first 5 chapters of Leviticus present Jesus.  Frequently I have had to think for days on a passage before I see Jesus in the story.

So how does one meditate?  Use your imagination.  For older folks, we may need to learn to imagine again, but children would be happy to help you creatively picture the scene and see now aspects of the story you might have missed. Ask yourself or your children what they see, hear, smell, taste and touch.  What are they doing in the story?  Picturing yourself in a biblical story can bring out many new insights into our own soul and relationship with God and others.  Then we can address these underlying thoughts when they are brought to the surface.  Ask yourself - what does this passage tell me?

Memorizing Scripture is another way of beginning the meditation process.  It is hard to reflect on something that you can't concretely recall.  Consider memorizing a larger passage of Scripture in order to plumb it's depths.

As you meditate, consider sharing your thoughts with someone else, particularly you children or grandchildren so that they can learn what you have learned but also so that they hear that hiding the word of God deep in your heart is part of the normal Christian life.  I hope this ideas give you some place to start.  If however you are still unfamiliar or unsure about what I am talking about, then I highly recommend reading one of the great devotion books chalked full of meditations.  Here are a few I would recommend:

Gregory of Nyssa's The Life of Moses
John Woolman's Journal
Francis de Sales' Introduction to the Devout Life
Ignatius of Loyola's The Spiritual Exercises