Meditation - As Simple as ... ABC!

How are you doing? Have you been rolling the D.I.C.E. at nighttime? How about chewing the cud, bringing up some thoughts upon which to meditate or pray through during the daytime?

To carry on with our theme of biblical meditation, Jim Downing, of the Navigators, once asked, “Why do we need to keep “chewing” on the Word of God? Jim summed it up this way: “As we meditate on the Word of God, the life of Jesus Christ flows out of Him, through the Word, and becomes a part of our spiritual bloodstream. The Bible is the primary means by which we share the life of Christ.”

Apart from rolling the D.I.C.E.. there are several other ways to meditate. One of those is ‘passage meditation’, where you methodically work through a passage of Scripture.

Unless you know the whole of the passage by heart (like Psalm 23?), you may have to do this one during the daytime as you will need to have your Bible open. Of course, if you have memorised the passage beforehand, you can do this at any time of the day or night.

ABC. That’s it!

A stands for ASK. You ask any question you can think of at the passage of Scripture or about the characters mentioned in the passage (including God Himself). e.g. in Psalm 23 you might ask, “What is significant about God likening Himself to a Shepherd?” or “What does it mean to me to have my Shepherd ‘spread a table for me before my enemies’?”. When you have exhausted your prayer-filled questions at the passage or when you want move on, you can then work on …

B, which is to BREAK down the passage into smaller chunks - maybe a verse or a phrase at a time - and roll your D.I.C.E. on that part of the passage. This allows you to take a memorised passage with you throughout your day. 😃 And finally …

C means context for the whole passage. For this you will have to get out your Bible and look at what has gone on before that might throw light on your passage, which is open now before you. Some people like to start with ‘C’ before doing a detailed drill down into the passage and that can also be helpful for a start off meditation on the passage (followed by A and B), but sometimes it can also be refreshing to do it last and see what the LORD shows you in the passage without looking first elsewhere (in Scripture) for background information.

Hopefully you will find this a helpful tool for meditation too. As you practice this a bit on a passage you feel like the LORD wants you to ‘be in’ for a while - I would suggest memorising it first if you will be in it more than a couple of days - don’t rush through the passage (especially if it is familiar!). Take your time and let the LORD show you beautiful jewels in His Word

Next time we shall look at the “why” question and “Scripture roulette” 😉