Last time we began wrestling with the very personal conundrum of a believer who struggles with prayer. The Bible depicts a God who is eager to hear prayer; it models prayer; it commands prayer; it promises answer to prayer. If I believe the Bible, why do I struggle to pray?
I suggested that perhaps for some of us, it’s not that we don’t believe the Scriptures, but that the Scriptures don’t govern our daily thinking. In the midst of a crisis, if someone were to ask, “Do you believe that God is sovereign, good, and wise?”, we may give a sincere, “yes!” It’s just that we are not in the habit of pondering God’s character and relating it to our circumstances, good and bad. So, when our circumstances change, we don’t consider them in light of who God is, naturally going to Him for help.
Rather, maybe the material world, our problems, whatever is on our phone screens, and a host of other things that we can see and feel do dominate our thinking so that prayer does not become an automatic response to our joys, troubles, and sorrows. Doesn’t mean we don’t believe. It may be that we just haven’t trained our minds.
So how do we move toward the Bible shaping the way that we think?
Several Bible passages suggest habitual, biblical muttering. Or…meditation. I find the former phrase helpful because it’s more descriptive, so let me explain.
Joshua 1:8 reads, “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.” (Similar verses include Psalm 1:2, 37:31, 119:11.)
This verse offers a valuable truth about the utility of meditation. That is, meditation on God’s Word helps one to obey God’s Word. This is largely because meditation on the Word does just what we’re talking about in this post—it works to conform our minds to God’s Word.
A second valuable truth in Joshua 1:8 is the mechanism of meditation. Meditation is a habitual exercise of the mouth and mind. The Lord said to Joshua, “This book…shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it…” We may think of meditation as strictly a mental activity. However, the word translated “meditate” here means to speak under one’s breath, to mutter. (“Mutter” can have the negative connotation of grumbling. That’s not how we’re using it.) That’s why He says, “this book…shall not depart from your mouth.” To meditate here is to speak God’s Word to oneself…
…day and night. Two insights can be gleaned from the reference to day and night. First, meditation—this muttering of God’s Word to oneself—is habitual. It isn’t intended to be a seasonal activity, like one of the OT feasts. It’s not even intended to be a once per day or once every few days activity. Rather, it’s a way of life. The happy, fruitful, righteous man of Psalm 1 delights in God’s Word and so meditates (“mutters”) on it day and night. It’s habitual.
Second, meditation is an activity not only of the mouth but also of the mind. Day and night meditation requires one to have gathered some portion of the Word into the mind so that it might be brought up throughout the day and night. Further, it would seem obvious that God did not call Joshua to a mindless recitation of the Word, but a mindful recitation. After all, God wants nothing more than that His people would love Him with the heart, soul, and mind (Matt 22:37). Therefore, meditation is speaking to oneself, but not only that. We might say it is also listening to and thinking on what is being recited. Pondering, chewing on it, considering one’s circumstances in light of it. “What might it mean to live in light of the truth of these things?”
Therefore, if I want to thrive in prayer rather than struggle, I might internalize various passages pertaining to prayer, meditate (habitually, mindfully talk to myself about those passages), and…pray!
It seems to me that this kind of habitual mindful meditation is necessary to change the way we think. Our thinking will not be governed by the Scriptures as it pertains to prayer otherwise.
Next time, we’ll consider how we might take practical steps to incorporate this, and how we might overcome typical obstacles to regular meditation and prayer. (If you want to get a headstart, you could begin reading closely, thinking through, even memorizing some of the verses cited in the last post.)
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