Ever Mind: God’s Heart for Meditation
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“We all have gone through a dark season or at least know someone who has.”
In 1991, Seattle-based grunge band Nirvana released their ground-breaking sophomore album, Nevermind. They would go on to reach the top of the charts, selling 30 million copies worldwide. After a few years of mental anguish, in a bout of tragic irony, Kurt Cobain, the lead singer of Nirvana––a term meaning “a transcendent state in which there is neither suffering, desire, nor sense of self” and is the end-goal of meditation in eastern religions––would take his own life.
But what more can you expect from a lost man, right? I mean, he was super lost. Well, let’s fast forward to 2019: renowned megachurch pastor, Jarred Wilson, commits suicide. This is no longer irony, just tragedy. The tragedy grows when we realize just how common this is among Christian, even evangelical, circles. We all have gone through a dark season or at least know someone who has. Even mighty men of God are no strangers to these struggles. Spurgeon was known to suffer from deep depression. David cried, "My tears have been my meat day and night...” (Psa 42:3). Jesus himself was prophesied to be “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.”
Now emotions in and of themselves are neutral. To be happy or sad is not good or bad, just a reflection of your current circumstances in life. We see that one of the Bible’s definitions for a wicked person is that “God is not in all his thoughts” (Psa 10:4). So often, the emotional turmoil we find ourselves in is due to these fleshly thought patterns we have. Whether it’s depression, anxiety, anger, or some combination of ungodly thoughts, we all tend to find ourselves in some sort of fleshly mental default mode that we can give ourselves over to if we aren’t careful. While emotions may be neutral, God cares deeply about our thoughts and thought processes.
So, what do we do with abhorrent thoughts? Well, the world has its solution: meditation. Meditation expert Andy Puddicombe describes meditation as “familiarizing ourselves with the present moment, ...stepping back and seeing [thoughts and emotions] coming and going without judgment with a relaxed, focused mind.” Interest in this practice as a remedy for clinical depression has skyrocketed. And here’s the thing…it works. Sort of.
“...love God by thinking about him and replacing our thoughts with his.”
The fact that it works shouldn’t come as a huge surprise to us Christians because we know that Egypt has always had its counterfeits to God’s design and plan (see Exodus 7:22 and Isaiah 31:1). With that in mind, what is the world actually trying to counterfeit here? While the world’s definition and goal of meditation is a form of controlled mental disengagement, God’s definition is complete and utter mental (and even physical) engagement with the things of God!
1 Timothy 4:15 Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all.
God has some very specific things he desires for us to not think (2 Cor 10:5) and some very specific things he desires for us to think and to do (Phil 4:8-9). His heart is that we would forsake all our fleshly thoughts and thought patterns and replace them with the thoughts he so graciously gave to us in his word (Isa 55:8-12).
The thing is that God thinks about us constantly (Psa 8, 139). He obsesses over us to the point that he knows the number of hairs on our heads (Luke 12:7). He thinks about us because he LOVES us. He loves us deeply and genuinely. He was so desirous of a relationship with us that he gave his only Son to purchase us out of sin. The moment we called on him for salvation, we received his Spirit which he promised would never leave us. God loves us so much that his thoughts toward us can’t even be numbered. Isn’t it only right that we love him in return?
In Deuteronomy 6:7-9, God gives us a great template to do just that: love God by thinking about him and replacing our thoughts with his. God desires that his words would be in our heart first and foremost by teaching and talking about them with whoever, whenever, and wherever. But, we should also do this by intentionally writing his words down in places where we can see them all the time. While we should all be reading God’s word, how often do we take time to read and meditate on a verse at our desk when we have a spare second? I think too many of us spend our idle time surfing whatever app we’re addicted to when God desires that those idle moments would be shared in intimacy, replacing our thoughts with his thoughts. This isn’t because we can’t have any time playing Bloons Tower Defense 5 or whatever, but what if we legitimately memorized scripture during those margins in our day? What if we purposed to think about God and his thoughts toward us when we’re getting up, driving to work or walking to our next class? To make them like honey as we thank him for his exceeding great and precious promises and pray for him to make them a reality in our lives.
“How different would we look if we thought about God as much as he thought about us?”
Psalm 119:97 O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day.
If the psalmist could say this about the law of Moses, how much more ought this be the cry of those who know the law of the Spirit of life in Christ (Rom 8:2)? Do we have a passion for God that spurs us to rehearse his words to ourselves like notes from a loved one? To have his words nigh unto us, in our mouths, and in our hearts that we might do it and preach it.
The lost world is lost in their thoughts, without Christ. Are we worth our salt if we know Christ, but are still lost in our thought patterns? How great would it be if the lost came across believers that let the word of Christ dwell in them richly? How different would we look if we thought about God as much as he thought about us?
Psalm 111:5 He hath given meat unto them that fear him: he will ever be mindful of his covenant.
Oh, that we would have God’s heart. That we would ever mind his covenant toward us.
Seth Harper is a member at Midtown Baptist Temple and a leader in C&YA. He is a part of Temple Worship and leads a men’s small group Bible study at UMKC.