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How quickly can you skim this article to work out whether you want to read this seriously? You probably don’t have long, so I’ll cut to the chase. You’re busy. We’re all busy. Your schedule is full. And your mind is working on overdrive. You’ve got one hundred and one things you’re trying to think, plan and remember—and another hundred and one things you’d really like to stop thinking about.
Most of us sense the same problem in our spiritual lives. I remember the day I discovered I could listen to a sermon podcast at 1.5x speed. New heights of efficiency! Listen to the same amount of teaching in less time? Awesome. Or not.
Perhaps, like me, spending your days scanning e-mails and racing through life in general means that when you sit down to read your Bible, you struggle. You struggle to become immersed in the passage or respond emotionally; you find yourself having to re-read paragraphs and often can’t remember what you’ve read a few hours later.
When we skim, we may get a general sense of the meaning, but we miss out on really understanding, perceiving beauty and grasping complexity.
So when it comes to God’s word, maybe it’s less about 1.5xing it and more about slowing things down; giving ourselves completely to meditating deeply, slowly and carefully, so that God’s word captivates our minds and moves our hearts.
That’s biblical meditation. And that’s what my book, Deeper Still, is about.
#1: Take You Deeper Into God’s Word
Biblical meditation will help you to go deeper into God’s word, and help God’s word to go deeper into you. It’s a way to listen carefully, memorise, chew over and digest slowly what the Lord is saying to you.
#2: Still Your Mind
Biblical meditation will still your mind. It’s an opportunity to dial down the volume on your frantic thought-life and rest in God’s unchanging truth. So that even when the Bible is not open in front of you, God’s words are still at the forefront of your mind.
#3: Fill Your Heart
Biblical meditation will fill your heart. It means listening to God’s word in a way that impacts us deeply, so that we keep thinking about it throughout the day; soaking in God’s truth so that it moves us to delight, empowers us to obey and enables us to hold fast.
#4: Give You Power to Take God’s Word and Live it Out
And it’s worth saying this: biblical meditation is not as hard as you may think. Meditation is not about spending hours and hours stuffing our heads full of Scripture but about coming to Jesus for life. As we look to him, we find not only the grace that forgives but the power to take God’s words and live them out.
I invite you to read Deeper Still to consider some Bible passages that explicitly mention meditation and explore how they help us to live out the truth we hear in God’s word throughout the day—particularly as we seek to delight in God, fight sin and endure suffering.
I’d encourage you to read with a pen in hand to help you concentrate, question and remember. Above all, my prayer is that this book will take you deeper still into the wonderful truths that God has revealed in his word, so that they fill your heart and fix your mind on him. So please… don’t just skim it.
This is an extract from Deeper Still by Linda Allcock. This book will help Christians who feel overwhelmed by their thought life, as well as those who want to go deeper in their devotional life.
Linda Allcock works alongside her husband Jonty in The Globe Church, central London, lectures on the women’s ministry course at London Seminary, and is author of Head Heart Hands Bible reading notes. Her life is a crazy, fun mix of boys (she has three sons plus Jonty!), Bible teaching, writing and feeding people.
