By Chris WittsThursday 20 Jul 2023Morning Devotions with Chris WittsFaithReading Time: 1 minute
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Transcript:
Are you one of those people that like to get in tune with God? How are you going to do that?
It was Rick Warren in his book called ‘The Purpose Driven Life’ where he said that meditation is often misunderstood as some difficult mysterious ritual that was practiced by the monks and the mystics. But meditation says Rick Warren is simply, ‘focused thinking’ – a skill that anyone can learn and use. I like that quote, it makes sense because if we want it to be, meditation can be very simple.
We want to share moments with God and get information from God, the strength and the guidance and often the compassion that’s needed to do his work. Meditation is a very important skill and it’s something we can all learn, we can read at length about how to swim. But the only way to swim of course is to actually jump into the water. And so it is with meditation and reflection. If we start every day by spending a few moments focusing our minds on God, we’ll soon develop that capacity to think over these things throughout the day and find ourselves actually changed.
So, let’s think about it for a moment. What about getting started? What about finding time?
If we start finding time, it can become a regular rhythm of life. Perhaps you could start small meditating moments for five minutes a day or even 10 minutes a day. And if you could do that for a week, that would be a great start. So after that first week, you could shorten or lengthen the meditation, whatever is appropriate and try and make that a goal.
You can meditate whenever you feel the need to and there will be opportunities that come, I’m sure every day. What about finding a space?
Perhaps the corner of your room or maybe just near the window where there’s a bit of light coming in. So once you’ve found that place, make it your own, make it comfortable. And if it’s that special chair, we’ll make it also your space for meditation.
Often we find that silence is the best way to meditate. You need perhaps to turn the phone off or shut off the answering machine and pull the plug on your CD player. And as it were, put a do not disturb sign on your door, ask your family, please don’t bother me during these times.
So bring your mind and your body and spirit to God being conscious that everything’s there and you can kneel or sit wherever you are and say things like here I am Lord and here you are. That’s not a bad way to start.
There can be things that you could use – your Bible, perhaps your hymn book or photographs, there could be poems or prayers, perhaps a notebook that you bring or even something on your computer that you want to look at.
So make a commitment to this and approach it as if you were waiting for God because the scripture says in Revelations 3:20 – look at me. This is really Jesus saying I stand at the door, I knock. If you hear me call and open the door, I’ll come right in and sit down to supper with you. Revelation three verse 20.
So you could think, well, what do I do? You could think about the scriptures. You could read some of the psalms. Psalm 23 is a marvelous way to think about that and pray the prayers that are actually in the scriptures.
You could think about the things that have happened in the previous day, evaluate what has happened in my life in the last 24 hours. Look back on the day’s experiences and you’ll see how God has led you and God has come with you and you can also confess the things that have gone wrong. There might have been things that you’ve thought or actions that you’ve actually made that, you know, were not right and that brought pain to the heart of God. So you can ask God for his forgiveness and pray for other people.
We used to call that intercession and ask that God will help other people and think about the things that Jesus talked about some of the parables, for example, in the New Testament. So we can learn the art of allowing God to teach us new things. And as we do, we’re actually building a foundation that God will use us for His glory.
Let’s Pray
Well, Father God, this morning, we admit you are a great God, you cheer our hearts, you cover us with the garments of righteousness and holiness. And we become whole in your eyes because of the forgiveness that we receive through Jesus. We are alive in Him. We fall at the feet of God and we worship Him and thank you for all this in the name of Jesus, Amen.