Meditation Podcast Episode

You can hike in a way that you get the trail done, or you can hike in a way that you soak up the beauty and you notice the things you pass, and that’s more of a meditation kind of an approach. Welcome everyone to Breaking Bread, the podcast brought to you by Apostolic Christian Counseling and Family Services. 

It’s great to have you along. Brian Sutter is with me here today through a Zoom call, so yeah, this is a little different than we usually do, but looking forward to visiting with you. We’re going to talk about meditation, and I know this is an area that you’ve thought deeply about, and you no doubt think deeply about this area on multiple different fronts. From a biblical perspective, Christian meditation, but you also confront it as it’s often pitched in its psychological realm as well. Sure. Because if I understand it right, there’s a lot out there about meditation these days, and in fact, it’s popular. I would love to bring some clarity to that and then some real practicality on how a believer meditates. 

Yeah, that’s a great way to start and to think about. Maybe a way to think about meditation would even just be a little bit like on a spectrum. Like there would be on the far end of the spectrum things that we could consider things that a Christian would be very wise to be careful with and then as you move along the spectrum to more things that are positive the Scriptures actually would encourage a believer to do and there’s a wide range. And like you just alluded to, in the world of psychology, meditation certainly is a bit of a buzzword right now and something that is really touted in lots of different ways and depending on exactly what they’re meaning or referring to, could be anywhere on that spectrum as we look at it as a believer. 

And how do I redeem this word or this idea to recapture what the Scriptures have endorsed for many, many years? And when you say recapture, you’re really saying that there is really something impactful and important here. Meditation should be a part of our skill set. Yes, exactly. And maybe even more so today than in previous generations. 

And what I mean by that is that in our day and age, to slow down, to be thoughtful, to use critical thinking, and to purposely focus our mind on something is not a skill or something that we do as much as they did in previous generations. And so that’s the essence of meditation and the sense of slowing down and saying, okay, what is it that I want to permeate my mind and shape me by deliberately placing one’s thoughts on a certain something. Is that a good umbrella understanding of meditation?  

Yeah, I think so. One of focus? Yeah, a high level, like, what is it that I’m going to focus my mind on and whether you use the phrase like to contemplate or to mull over that sense of like, what is it that I’m going to focus my mind on and kind of turn over and look at it from this angle and turn it over again here and turn it over again here and consider it as deeply as I have time for. 

Okay, so let me pitch another idea for you, and that is a concept of attention. Being able to be fully attentive. and attuned to something very narrow and specific. Yeah. There are high stakes out there for our attention and there are platforms out there that have got this thing down as a science. Think about social media feeds and news outlets. 

These are platforms that have mastered getting and keeping attention, haven’t they? Yeah, exactly. They know exactly what the things are that are going to get our attention and then keep it there over the long term. And so, what we’re talking about here when we think about biblical meditation is that we’re trying to be able to say wait, what is it that I really want my mind to be focused on? And if I’m not purposeful, this flashy thing over here will grab my attention and keep it, and that’s not necessarily bad always, but it may not be what I would actually pick as the priority that says, what do I want to change my mind? What do I want to impact my mind? 

And I think you’re really raising an important issue that I want to get to in this conversation, that is, the why of meditation. I’d like to set that out just a little bit, because I think we’re still understanding the what of meditation, what it is. And even as you talked there, Brian, two things occur to me that is required in meditation, and that is, in front of myself what it is I am to focus on, and to the exclusion of things that I shouldn’t be focusing on. 

Yeah. And I think it’s so important to be aware of that, that’s not an easy thing, and it won’t naturally happen unless we say, yep, this is what I want to put in front of me, and I also have to be aware of these are the things that are going to naturally grab my attention if I’m not careful, and then keep refocusing on the thing that I’d say, nope, this is where I want it to be. 

Which is really now getting into the how of meditation, but I just promised our audience the why of meditation, so we’ll come back to the how, okay? Let’s go now to that why of meditation. What value is there in training our attention on one specific thing? Yeah. Well, I think any time that we gain the ability or the strength to say, this is what I’m going to focus on, and then the ability to shift our mind in that direction, it’s going to be a helpful thing. 

Even if you think of just the mind in general. If you want the mind to be full of worry, that is not a difficult thing, right? It’ll just do that. But if you want to be able to train your mind to shift from worry into more of a trusting stance or more into a focusing on promises and truths, that’s going to take the muscle of being able to choose where you want to focus and then being able to move into that. 

That’s a fresh perspective for me, and that is you’ve provided this as a skill set, a living skill set that simply says, hey, listen, to do life well and to be healthy mentally, we need to learn how to direct our thoughts so that we are not being whiplashed by them. Yes. And I think part of why that again is so important is because we live in a day and age where you can know about anything anywhere in the world, it is overwhelming.  

There are so many inputs. And if our mind is just overrun by those inputs, being able to sort through those and say, no, this is where I’m going to go, or this is what I’m going to prioritize. If we’re not able to do that, then it impacts our actions and our emotions and just our personhood, because it gets paralyzing if we can’t figure out how to sort through all of that. 

Taking our very cluttered lives and saying, now let’s focus. Yes. And again, as we think about focusing on the Scriptures, meditating on the Scriptures, and in that learning, and getting a sense of what is the voice of the Spirit, and how to be connected with that, because it’s going to be connected with the Word, is going to help then give us discernment when we’re trying to figure out, is this a time to focus on work, or is this a time to focus on this relationship, or so on and so forth, that hopefully, is helping us have that discernment and then we can figure out where to focus our energy. 

And so, I think there’s another, even a shift, I think, for the why of meditation that you’ve even provided right there. The first one was more of a skill set. We have a barrage of inputs, and we have to be able to learn how to meditate and be selective and give our attention. But what you’re supplying there is that meditation builds me to be the type of man or type of woman who can discern. 

Yeah. And now you’re really pitching it, not just as a skill set, but as a discipline. Brian let’s now get practical. How do we meditate? And let’s specifically talk about scriptural meditation. Yeah. Well, I think as a starting point, you know, to be able to slow down is a necessary part of it. And so, part of what it’s going to look like is to slow down and to focus on noticing. 

So then beyond that, as we slow down, we notice, then what I would say, another step would be what I would call curiosity. And curiosity is this place that says, I want to pay attention and see what’s here that maybe I’ve missed before or maybe there’s a richness here that as I think about this and consider it, it might become fresh or new to me. 

So that curiosity where you’re open to experiencing what is there, I think, oftentimes, even with Scripture, as believers, we’re so familiar with it, and we’ve read it so often, as we’re reading it, we kind of know what’s coming next, and our mind is filling in that gap. And that’s helpful, but it also keeps us from actually thinking about it and reading what we’re reading. 

It’s just like we’re on autopilot. Does that make sense? Oh, it makes complete sense. I’d like to even set this a little bit next to and draw distinctions from that of Bible study. Oh, sure. And I think there’s overlap and connection, but I guess I think there’s a difference between diving into the Word to say, what does it mean? 

And there’s wisdom, and that’s really important. We need to do that. And looking into the deep meaning and then I think their meditation maybe would be contrasted in the sense of saying, okay, how do I consider this Word and that it would impact and begin to change me and shift the way that I see the world, the way that I see myself, that it would begin to transform me and change me. 

Not just that I would know what it means, but that it would have an impact on me. What you’re suggesting here with meditation is allowing the Word of God to act upon me. It’s almost as if in meditation, we open ourselves up to the Word and in Bible study, we open the Word up to us. And I think that there’s really beautiful. 

Yeah. You know, when we think about meditation and it having a transformative effect on us, I would see it much more like putting a roast in a slow cooker. Right? Versus like the microwave and you’re just nuking it. This meditation is about a slow, steady pace that is having an effect on us, and maybe in such an incremental kind of way that we may not be able to see it. 

We often won’t be able to see it in the moment, but years gone on, we can see that it is transforming the way we think about life. Patience, slow down, focus is important, attention is important, repetition is important. In those things, if you’re doing all of those steps and things, part of what you’re opening yourself up for is shifting your perspective. 

And I think in some ways that’s really scary. But if it’s in alignment with the Scriptures, that’s a beautiful thing, and that we would want our relationship with the Lord and understanding of him and our view of how we see the world to be shifting as we walk with him. And so, part of meditation is letting the Word teach us what is true. 

Yeah. So that meditation, and that’s why it’s so healthy, is it really is reframing our minds so that we think correctly. Well, now it’s a no duh. Now I get why it’s so healthy. Right? Sure. We’re made image bearers of God, right? He has created us, and so there’s a sense of coming home. We come home to think the way we were supposed to think. 

Yeah. Which I think is really exciting. One word that I think is really popular, and I think it lies very close to the concept of meditation, is mindfulness. Brian, what are your thoughts on that concept? In a general sense, I think of mindfulness as a way to say, how do I be in the present moment, rather than being present. 

Worried about you know the things in the future or getting stuck on the regrets of yesterday. So mindfulness would be like living in the here and now and if we’re doing that for the purpose of being able to be present to be able to notice the things that the Lord has around us to be able to be thankful to be able to be joyful, appreciative and live in the moment in a way that’s consistent with what the Lord wants, that is certainly a good thing and that we can be very confident to say, yes, I’m going to do that. 

If we’re thinking about mindfulness from a standpoint of emptying ourselves and tapping into a spiritual realm or a truth that lies within us, that’s where we need to be really careful with and even outside of the Christian worldview. And I would say, predominantly. So, unless that’s what you’re pursuing, you’re not going to find that as much, but it’s certainly out there. 

But on the biblical worldview, we would say, no, we want to empty ourselves so that we can get filled with the truth of the Scriptures. We want to meditate on the Scriptures that’s out here. But it would inform us on what is true. Whether the term is, meditation, mindfulness, all of that. If we understand those terms to mean you push certain things out and you bring a certain something in to focus on, well, then that can be good and bad. 

All depends on what it is you’re putting out and what it is you’re putting in. And God, through the course and history of mankind. Exactly. Amen. David has used this very much, and David being a classic example, of bringing a great deal of health and mental health. Here is a man who dealt with anguish, he dealt with hard pain, he experienced these things openly, and yet, he was healthy, and I would have to believe this meditation had a part of it. 

Thanks Brian. Anything you want to share? No, it’s been my privilege and I guess I would just encourage people to consider the topic of meditation and trying just stepping towards practicing, meditating on the Scriptures a little bit more tomorrow than you did today. Start small, enjoy it, and just be excited about what it does and what the Lord has to teach you there. 

The goal isn’t that you walk away with something tangible or a felt shift as much as a realization that it’s a good thing to meditate on the Scriptures and to trust that the Lord’s doing something in that, even if you can’t see what it is. That’s great. Thank you. Thanks, each one for being on here today and listening in. 

We are so thankful to our listeners.