Garden of Discipline: Tool of Meditation

In the garden of Spiritual Discipline, there are tools that we can implement that give us greater chances of fruitful growth. To be clear, these tools do not guarantee anything. If you do any farming or gardening, you’ve probably experienced the frustration of carefully tending plants and still not harvesting what you expected. Tomatoes have been the best example of this in my garden. Little or no fruit has followed months of meticulous watering, feeding and pruning.

This may come as a surprise, but despite the lingo we usually use, the farmer does not grow plants. He provides the best conditions that he has control over in order to encourage growth. There are choices the prudent farmer will make regarding seed placement, soil supplementation, weeding and probably a thousand other things I don’t even know about. Regardless, the weather will always be the wildcard. Surprise storms should probably have been added to Benjamin Franklin’s list of guarantees in life. Farmers can’t control the weather, but they can prepare their crops to withstand natural forces. Whether we’re talking about towering apple trees or tiny bean stalks, the healthier the root system, the better chance to preserve life and the more fruitful the farm will be.

The same principle apply to our spiritual lives. We can add practices that turn into habits, that then become a way of life, that places us in a position to receive more of the nearness of God. This holy space will bring a sweeter awareness of the love of our Father; a greater sensitivity to the Holy Spirit’s guiding and convicting of sin; and gradually, real change in our characters. There will be more of a family resemblance to the saints of old and to our savior, Jesus. Our roots of faith will be strengthened to withstand every storm, natural and otherwise. Others will benefit from the promised fruit of Galatians chapter five flourishing in us. This growth will not be because we prayed more or read our Bible consistently or fasted three times a week. But any or all of those things may intentionally place ourselves in a position to be cultivated by the Gardener of our souls.

These practices that we use as tools to encourage growth, may vary from season to season and person to person. Some may become a lifestyle but be practiced in different ways throughout our lives. The first discipline that Richard Foster covers in his classic, Celebration of Discipline, is Meditation. Personally, as someone who grew up in the Church, I think it is interesting the inner reaction this word first brings. It Is a suspicious caution comparable to flipping over a rock and being ready for something hideous to furiously burrow away. I think this comes from the fact that Christianity is not the only religion to use the term. But besides semantics, there really is no similarity.

Eastern meditation practices involve emptying your mind and trying to separate yourself from everything physical to somehow reach a place of full detachment. Conversely, in Christian tradition, and the Hebraic before that, meditation was a way to fill one’s mind with the words and works of God. To actively  listen for His voice everywhere and in the most unexpected places. To commune with your Creator through reflecting on His past faithfulness or guidance. To dive deeply into the breathtaking beauty of the night sky and feel your soul soar into your Heavenly Father’s heart. To ponder the passed-down stories and instructions that demonstrate the character of the true Source of mercy and justice.

We see this type of meditation demonstrated over and over in Scripture and in the writings of Christian saints throughout history. Spend some time in the book of Psalms and you’ll quickly notice the writers reaching out to God and hearing His voice through their study of nature or history or even their own vulnerable humanity. The “thing” that they were looking at or thinking about was a conduit that caused their hearts to hear the voice of their Creator.

·  Through Nature: The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. (Psalm 19:1)

·  Through History: Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. (Psalm 107:19)

·  Through Self: Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. (Psalm 139:16)

One of my favorite examples of this intentional listening to the voice of God is Harriet Tubman. She is known to have guided thousands of self-emancipated people to freedom. She did so at tremendous risk and faced down death many times. Though often misunderstood and even ridiculed for it, she practiced a very practical form of meditation. She stayed focused on listening to the voice of God leading her. She said, “God’s time is always near. He gave me my strength and he set the North Star in the heavens. He meant I should be free… It wasn’t me, it was the Lord! I always told Him, ‘I trust to you. I don’t know where to go or what to do, but I expect You to lead me,’ and He always did.”

Jeremiah 29:13 says that those who seek the Lord with all their hearts will find Him. I believe this promise applies to the practice of meditation. Though we can hear the voice of God in and through an unlimited number of people and things, it is the condition of the heart that determines our ability to truly hear and know that voice. We don’t want to be deceived by other voices, within or without. No matter how many times Disney says it, the human heart really isn’t the best guide for life. Jeremiah actually called it deceitful above all else and desperately sick (17:9). God is speaking all the time to and through His creation. We can be sure of the message we hear if we remember that He is faithful and unchanging and will never contradict what He has already said through His written word, the Bible. When we are sincerely seeking His voice and heart and will, He promises that we will hear Him and know Him. “I will be found by you, declares the Lord!” (Jeremiah 29:14)