Meditation and Reflection

In one of the past articles, I discussed the spiritual disciplines of solitude and silence. Some spiritual disciplines that very naturally grow out of solitude and silence are meditation, reflection, and confession. Solitude and silence help God to clear our minds of all that distracts and hinders us from developing a loving relationship with Him, which will transform our hearts. Whenever we spend time alone with our Father experiencing His presence and learning to not only be comfortable with Him, but also to enjoy our time with Him, our relationship will deepen.

As our minds gradually become clear in solitude and silence, we naturally begin to focus our thoughts on God and our relationship with Him. As we meditate our spiritual sensitivity and awareness becomes heightened. Once our minds are clear from the clutter, worry, and cares of the world, we see ourselves as we are, and recognize our need for God. As we meditate on the vastness of God’s greatness, magnanimity, power, love, mercy, and grace we are drawn to Him. We appreciate and desire Him more and more as we meditate on our growth in our knowledge and experience of Him.

When in contemplative silence before God, there are things that are good for us to reflect upon as we consider our relationship with God. It may be helpful to journal or pray about your thoughts about God’s love for you. Make a list of the attributes of God. Reflect upon each one. Reflect upon the wonders of God’s creation.

As we meditate, there are obstacles to self-examination that we might consider. We sometimes fall into traps during self-examination. For example, we are sometimes blind to our character flaws, we make excuses for wrong behavior, or we fall into berating ourselves, hoping that feelings of shame will help us to improve. We typically evaluate ourselves on our own power rather than allowing God to search us. We must pray as the Psalmist for God to search our hearts. Below are some possible questions of examen for us to consider:

•What difficulties, frustrations, or temptations are you
encountering spiritually?
•How have you been responding to those temptations?
•Which spiritual disciplines might God use to help you
overcome these temptations?
•What joys and delights are you encountering spiritually?
•How is God working in your life recently?
•Do you sense any influence of God’s Spirit?
•What spiritual gifts are you exercising?
•What opportunities is God giving you to serve others?
•How are you responding?
•Has God provided you with an opportunity to share your
faith with someone recently?
•How have you responded?
•Have you brought healing, help, or hope into someone’s
life lately?
•In what ways does your life reflect the presence and
power of God?
•Identify one lifestyle change of commitment that you
think God would like you to make.
•If you could grow in one area of your relationship
with God, what would it be?
•Which spiritual disciplines might help you grow in
this area?

Contemplative meditation and refection can be a tremendous blessing as we seek to grow into Christ-likeness.

Comments

  1. AnonymousSeptember 28, 2009 at 5:18 AM

    Terry, thank you for this wonderful post. Like a lot of spiritual disciplines, I sort of combine them at times, and meditation & reflection are usually how I spend most of my early morning solitude & silence. I have found that for these brief meditations & reflections it is helpful for me to "prime the pump" by reading a psalm or two, then re-reading them to see what verse(s) speak to me. I highlight the verse(s) and pray those for a few moments. Sometimes the verses speak to me about God's nature, sometimes they expose a spiritual weakness or difficulty in me. I use these as a way to focus on a specific aspect or dimension of God for meditation.
    Thank you again, and God bless you on the journey!
    SS

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

New Topics?

Is there anything specific you would like to discuss? Please let me know by posting or emailing me. If you do not have anything in mind, I'll continue to post things I'm interested in. Thanks, Terry
Read more

Practical ways of developing and expressing community

After having discussed the biblical principles describing what a Jesus community looks like, we must ask, “How do we develop and express community/fellowship in our churches today?” Is the biblical model a pattern for all times? Not necessarily, otherwise we would all have to meet in private homes, share a common meal in our gatherings, and eat the Lord’s Supper in the context of that fellowship meal. Yet, it is important that we follow the principles discussed above. We must be careful not to make every action of the early church an authoritative precedent to be rigorously copied without regard to time and place. The New Testament is not a second Levitical Code. It is our responsibility, guided by ancient precedent and wisdom from above, to adapt to the current and future needs of our world. Whatever forms, projects, programs, or activities we use today, they must be guided by the fundamental truths that Jesus is Lord, the Holy Spirit is present, the gospel must be lived out, and...
Read more

God builds community through spiritual gifts

As the body of Christ, we must learn to understand each person’s giftedness from the Spirit of God. Each person in a community should understand the various roles, functions, and works of the body, and how every individual works within that framework, coordinated and networked within the body to accomplish the overall purposes of the community. We must remember that God has gifted His church for her own well being and growth. Sadly, many do not recognize their gifts in the body of Christ, nor do they know what their role is in the body. We might begin by studying together the purpose of the church in light of the gospel, and evaluating the various gifts of each body part within the realm of that purpose. In doing so, we learn to appreciate the unity that is inherent in the diversity of a community. After discovering one’s gifts, and identifying their role in the community, each one must be taught how and where to administer their gifts and carry out their role within the community...
Read more