Gina Hyatt recently wrote a post on her style of meditation. I asked her to discuss it here, and she graciously accepted.
by Gina Hyatt
Bible stories and scripture memorization have great value. However, the word of God is deeper and more powerful than regurgitated language. When I began the discipline of meditating on God’s word with the “Revelation by Meditation” model, my whole prayer life changed. Everything about God, the bible, and Christianity was re-written for me, as if I had re-formatted a computer (which was me) and began re-loading all new programs on it. My love and fascination for the word increased dramatically as well as my personal understanding and revelation of the word.
O how I love Your law!
It is my meditation all the day.
Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies,
For they are ever mine.
The “Revelation by Meditation” model was introduced to me by a teaching of Kirk Bennett. Basically you choose a small portion of scripture, like a phrase, not even a whole verse, and you Read It, Write It, Say It, Sing It, Pray It. That might sound simple, but try it. Block out an entire hour to meditate on a phrase of scripture.
For example, take John 3.16, “For God so loved the world that He gave….” Stop.
- Read it. Read it to your heart; read it out loud.
- Write, write, write. Everything and anything that comes through your heart, out your pen. Don’t filter.
- Say it over and over. Walk. Pace. Speaking the word back to God is so powerful for our hearts, and builds faith in our inner person.
- Sing it. Put on soft worship music, and sing the passage, phrase, or just a word from the passage to the melody of the music. You can make a melody without music too, but music is a powerful way to ingrain the word into our hearts. One phrase will soon turn into two, and three, etc. and before long, you have written a song out of the scripture. This is the best way to carry the scripture in your heart: Through personal revelation of it, sewn in melody.
- Pray it. For example, “Father, I thank you that you so loved the world. You didn’t give up on the world, and you still haven’t. Father, you are so kind to love us. You are so affectionate to woo us with your very Son.”
Praying is not always asking God for stuff. Say his word back to him as it reveals his character, his heart, and his affections for you personally—and you will begin to unlock a greater revelation of who he is. Pray in declaration of who he is, and in thanksgiving and adoration.
Finally, being an artist, I like to put on worship music and paint while meditating on a scripture passage. I have many paintings that came out of a time I was meditating on a scripture or biblical thought. Every time I look at the painting, I have a flood of revelation from which was unlocked during the painting session.
Here are a couple resources to help you begin, or get refreshed, in the area of scripture meditation. Use this Meditation Guide [download PDF here] to write out your thoughts as you meditate:
The column on the left (“Tasks”) is for everything that comes to mind during your time you’ve set a part to meditate on. Trust me, everything from “I need to pick up milk” to “I don’t even know if I’m saved” will come into your mind when you have set your mind to meditate on the word!
At the bottom, where it says “Pursuits,” write down potential tangents you could go down. For example, when meditating on “For God so loved the world,” I begin to think, “I wonder how many unreached people groups there still are? I think I want to name them all and pray for them…” No! I will write that down and do that later. Right now I am meditating. Got it?
For Kirk’s resources, click here.