Bible Meditation Practical Tips – what I do

In case you are interested, this is how I personally approach the practicalities of setting time aside and of meditating on God’s amazing word.

• Diarise your appointments with God.  I am not a particularly disciplined person so I need to diarise these times of dwelling on God’s word.  In addition, by putting them in my diary they are more likely to happen – life has a habit of getting in the way!
• Do it regularly.  I aim to have these extended times with him every two weeks, on top of my daily times with God which can be a bit ‘snatched.’  However, that hasn’t always been possible, especially in the beginning, and sometimes a month or more might pass in between.  But I don’t beat myself up; these times with God need to be guilt free.  As time has gone on, I have jealously guarded these appointments and in the main will only change them if there is a suitable alternative either the day before or after.  This is time VERY well spent.  You will not regret it.
• Choose when is best and somewhere private.  The best time and place for me is Saturday mornings in my bedroom.  I have an extended breakfast in bed and begin by reading my daily devotional and any Bible passages that the devotional recommends.  I also have with me my diary and my mobile, in case something comes to mind that I need to do or remember and therefore make a note of it.  This way, I eliminate certain distractions.
• Be prepared to give it time.  When I started I put aside about an hour.  It can take me a while to focus so I thought this would be a sensible amount of time.  Now, it’s more like two to three hours, and it whizzes by!  But that’s what works for me.  You need to do what you are able to commit to.  Long or short, God honours the time we give back to him.
• Keep a journal of these times.  Having a journal or notebook to record what you hear, think and feel is invaluable as the frailty of the human mind and its capacity to forget what God says is huge.  Not to mention the frailty of our faith.  If you do not record your thoughts and what you believe God is highlighting to you, doubts can creep in and questions arise; did I really feel that, hear that, realise that?  A journal has been invaluable for me.
• What to meditate on.  I began with a favourite Psalm, 103.  Each time I would read the whole Psalm and ask God to help me hear him as I read it, and reveal which part of the Psalm he wanted me to focus on.  Usually it would be just one verse.  And if I wasn’t sure that anything had jumped out at me, I then focused on the verses in order.  I didn’t get past the first verse for quite some time (as you can see if you’re reading my Blog).  And this is a method I still use.
• What else to meditate on.  I often use excerpts from a daily devotional too.  It might be that a passage or a sentence has particularly struck me and I want to give more time to thinking about it.  There might even be more than one passage that has struck me and it’s when I bring them together that a theme can emerge and I get a better picture of what God might be saying to me.  An example of this is a series of excerpts that struck me early in 2006.  They pointed to a time of great difficulty that was coming and that God wanted me to be aware of.  As I write this, I am on the other side of that season and can look back with hindsight.  It was a hugely tough time for me, with immense and relentless pressure put on me from so many sides, and it lasted the best part of five years.  Meditating on his word and receiving encouragements from him – directly and via others – got me through it.  In fact, I would go so far as to say it saved my health and my sanity.
• Final tip.  Having recorded your thoughts, what you believe God is showing you and any words you might receive from him, I totally recommend that you read what you have written in between your times of lingering in his presence.  You will be so encouraged.