I would like to say a big thank you for your patience this year as these posts have not been as regular as I would have liked. You may recall at the start of this year we took up the exciting opportunity to present the God Centred Meditation message on Christian Television. I hope you’ve had a chance to watch it. If you haven’t had a chance to see it yet you can catch us on Sunday mornings at 7.55am (AEST) on ACCTV on Foxtel (or online). The episodes will also be posted to our website very soon and I will let you know when they are available.
In the meantime, I hope you have been well and you have been able to have some wonderful times of meditation with God.
One of the things that I love about meditating on God is that it is not static. Before I learnt about meditating on God I thought meditation was about emptying the mind and sitting silently in “nothing-ness”. But what I discovered is that “God-Centred” meditation is not a static experience, it is a dynamic encounter with God.
Unlike other forms of meditation where stillness is the only feature, when meditating on God, stillness is just one part of our meditation experience. Yes, our main aim is stillness but meditating on God is so much more than that.
So, if you’ve been wondering “what should my meditation time look like?” I would say that there are four main things that we are aiming for when meditating on God that will bring us into the deepest encounter with Him.
But please remember this is just what we are aiming for – it’s not a test of our holiness or anything like that. Some days are harder than others to be still and to stop our mind from racing. This is not a failure and it is not something to be anxious about. If we turn up to meet God, He will too even if we don’t feel like anything is happening.
The atmosphere and the state of our heart we are aiming to achieve when meditating on God is a combination of these four things –
1. Stillness; bringing peace and calm to our heart and mind
2. Becoming aware of the presence of God with us, in us and all around about us
3. Letting go of everything else and completely focussing on God
4. Our spirit awakening to express love and worship to God.
Of course everyone experiences God and meditation differently so I wouldn’t like to try and stereotype it but if you want to know how you can encounter God through meditation then I would say make your meditation time mostly about stillness and the awareness of God’s presence with you by letting go of everything else and setting your heart and mind completely on God.
When we are still and we rest our minds and bodies, it gives our spirit an opportunity to come to the forefront and what we usually find is two things happen. One is we realise how thirsty our soul (or spirit) is for the presence of God and secondly how much we long to express our love and worship to God.
While meditation is mostly about stillness, it’s not a bad thing to allow your soul some space to express love and worship to God during your meditation time. But just be careful that this is not a cue for your mind to take over and start with too much internal chatter.
Remember, this is God’s time to speak to you and do whatever healing or restoring work He needs to do in your heart. I keep my journal and a pen ready because most days God drops thoughts, ideas and scriptures into my heart and I want to remember what they are later so I quickly write them in my journal and return to meditating on God.
And one thing I have learnt is not to stress about what to “do” in my meditation time. If ever I start to feel like “what do I need to do next to feel His presence” I remind myself I don’t need to “do” anything. I just need to “be” – be with Him. And I take a deep breath and simply sit with God and be aware that His presence is with me.
You see, our minds cannot always perceive what is happening in our spirit but my experience is that every time we make space to meet with God, He turns up. I don’t always “feel” like something is happening and that’s because our natural mind can’t always sense what is happening in the spiritual. But God ALWAYS turns up and God ALWAYS does a work in our heart when we make time and space to be with Him.
If you feel like nothing at all is happening in your meditation time, just keep turning up to be with God, keep waiting in the stillness with your heart and mind turned to Him, by faith believing that He is with you and don’t struggle with trying to “do” anything. Just sit and be with Him.
Enjoy the stillness with an open heart and that is all you need to do. God is most probably doing something so deep within your heart, that your natural mind can’t perceive it and if you keep coming to God in meditation, in the days ahead you will see the evidence of it in your life. You will know that He really was with you on those days when you felt like nothing at all was happening.
I know that if you keep coming to God in meditation and focus on the four things I have given above, you will have life changing encounters with God that will truly refresh and restore your soul, change situations in your life and transform your world for good.
Praying you have a blessed and peace-filled week!
Leah ♥♥
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