On Deliberate Meditation

The most important kind of meditation is daily, deliberate meditation, engaged in at set times.  Calamy said deliberate meditation takes place “when a man sets apart…some time, and goes into a private Closet, or a private Walk, and there doth solemnly and deliberately meditate of the things of Heaven.”  Such deliberation dwells upon God, Christ, and truth, like “the Bee that dwells and abides upon the flower, to suck out all the sweetness.”  It “is a reflecting act of the soul, whereby the soul is carried back to itself, and considers all the things that it knows” about the subject, including it’s “causes, fruits, [and] properties.”

Thomas White said deliberate meditation draws from four sources: Scripture, practical truths of Christianity, providential occasions (experiences), and sermons.  Sermons are particulary fertile fields for meditation.  As White wrote, “It is better to hear one Sermon only and meditate on that, than to hear two Sermons and meditate on neither.”

From: Puritan Reformed Spirituality by Joel R. Beeke (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2004), p. 77.  Elipsis in original.

 

Preparing to Meditate

Puritan writers suggested several ways to prepare for effective meditation, all of which depend “much on the frame of thy heart”:

1.  Clear your heart from things of this world – its business and enjoyments, as well as its internal troubles and agitations.  Calamy wrote, “Pray unto God not only to keep out outward company, but inward company; that is, to keep out vain, and worldly, and distracting thoughts.”

2.  Have your heart cleansed from the guilt and pollution of sin, and stirred up with fervent love for spiritual things.  Treasure up a stock of [Scripture] texts and spiritual truths.  Seek grace to live out [the psalmist's] confession in Psalm 119:11, “Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against Thee.”

3.  Approach the task of meditation with utmost seriousness.  Be aware of its weightiness, excellence, and potential.  If you succeed, you will be admitted into the very presence of God and feel, once again, the beginning of eternal joy here on earth.  As Ussher wrote, “This must be the thought of thy heart: ‘I have to do with a God before whom all things are naked and bare and, therefore, I must be careful to not speak foolishly before the wise God, that my thoughts be not wandering.’  A man may talk with the greatest prince on earth, his mind otherwise busied.  Not so to come to talk with God.  His eye is on the heart and, therefore, thy chief care must be to keep the rudder of they heart steady.  Consider the three persons in the Trinity are present.”

4.  Find a place for meditation that is quiet and free from interruption.  Aim for “secrecy, silence, rest, whereof the first excludeth company, the second noise, the third motion,” wrote Joseph Hall.  Once a suitable place is found, stick with that place.  Some Puritans recommended keeping the room dark or closing one’s eyes to remove all visible distractions.  Others recommended walking or sitting in the midst of nature.  Here, one must find his own way.

5.  Maintain a body posture that is reverent, whether it be sitting, standing, walking, or lying prostrate before the Almighty.  While meditating, the body should be the servant of the soul, following its affections.  The goal is to center the soul, the mind, and the body upon “the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6).

From: Puritan Reformed Spirituality by Joel R. Beeke (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2004), pp. 82-83.

 

The Sermon – Further Thoughts

Take heed how you hear. (Luke 18:18)

In preaching, Christ the King speaks to us and changes us by His Word and Spirit.  As we keep in mind the exalted place of preaching, and what we are to listen for in preaching, we must not forget that how we hear the Word of God preached is of eternal importance.  James 1:22-25 warns us: Be doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.  For, if anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.  But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.

The Westminster Larger Catechism (Q. 160) gives a helpful summary of how we are meant to hear the preaching of God’s Word: Q. What is required of those who hear the Word preached?  A. It is required of those who hear the Word preached, that they attend upon it with diligence, preparation, and prayer; examine what they hear by the Scriptures; receive the truth with faith, love, meekness, and readiness of mind, as the Word of God; meditate, and confer of it; hide it in their hearts, and bring forth the fruit of it in their lives.

For Reflection:

1.  Have you taken seriously that you are deceiving yourself if you simply listen to sermons and do not actually obey what Christ tells you in them?

2.  How do you prepare yourself to receive the preaching of the Word?

3.  What do you learn about Christ from sermons?  Are you called to believe in Him as your Savior and Lord?  How?

4.  How much do you pray for upcoming preaching?  Are you quicker to criticize preaching than to pray for it?

5.  Do you receive the preaching of the Word with a love for the truth that is given in it?  See 2 Thessalonians 2:10.

6.  How do you meditate on the sermons that you hear each week?

7.  Do you discuss the sermons afterwards, or do you forget them and act as if you never heard them?

8.  In specific ways, how do you bring forth the fruit of preaching in your life and in your family’s life?

9.  How can you better “take heed how you hear” the Word of God?

From: Helps for Worship by William Shishko (np: The Committee on Christian Education of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, 2008), p. 36.

 

On Meditation

The soul, in coming back to God, will be greatly helped by meditation…The soul feasts when it meditates.  I am afraid these eager days leave little space for meditation, yet there is no exercise more nourishing to faith, and love, and all the graces.  David says, “I remember thee; I meditate on thee.”  A transient thought of God may bless us largely, even as a touch of the hem of the Saviour’s garment healed a woman of her plague.  But to meditate upon Him is, as it were, to lean our head upon His bosom and enjoy full fellowship in His love.  Oh, for more meditation!  It would mean more grace, more joy.  The photographer can take an instantaneous photograph; and so can we, by ejaculatory prayer and vehement desire, obtain immediate help from heaven.  But, in a certain state of the atmosphere, the object needs longer exposure – needs, in fact, that its image should rest longer upon the sensitive plate before it will completely imprint itself thereon.  Meditation does, as it were, set the Lord long before the soul, so that it receives His image more completely.  Happy is he who can say, “I have set the Lord always before me!”…He understands the country best who has seen most of it, and we know the Lord, by His Spirit, far better by quiet meditation than by any other means.  We not only remember our Lord once, but we remember, and remember, and remember, and remember again, till memory flowers into meditation.  Thoughts of God crop the herbage, but meditation chews the cud; and it is the chewing of the cud which yields nourishment.  Oh, that you and I may often cheer our sleepless hours by heavenly meditation, for thus shall the pure in heart see their God, and thus shall they enter into the closest fellowship with Him.

Among our subjects for meditation should be God’s gracious dealings with us.  David meditated upon his whole life in the light of its connection with God.  He read his diary through, and specially dwelt upon the points wherein he had come into contact with the Invisible Omnipotence.  He knew God best by special times of gracious aid.  After all, it is not what we read in the Book but what we feel in the heart which actually gives us our best acquaintance with God.  A hundred biographies of other men will not make so much impression upon us as the knowing of God in our own personal experience.  If we can say of Him, “Thou hast been my help,” we shall meditate upon Him to good purpose.

C. H. Spurgeon (1834-1892), sermon on Psalm 63:7, “Experience and Assurance” (preached on September 28, 1890)