Meditating on a verse: six questions to let it work

Meditating, for many people, evokes emptiness, silence, an exotic posture. In the Bible, it is something else: ruminating on a word the way an animal ruminates on grass, to draw out all its substance. This quest invites you to take a single verse and let it work in you, with simple questions.

What it looks like in your day

Choose a verse. Just one. Then ask it, one after the other, six questions, leaving a silence between each:

1. What does it say, word for word? Say it again in your own words.
2. Who is speaking, and to whom? God, a man, an author? To a people, to a person, to you?
3. Which word stops me? A verb, a noun, an image that catches.
4. What does this say about God? What trait of his appears?
5. What does it change for me today? A belief to correct, a fear to calm, a gesture to make.
6. How do I answer him? A thank-you, a request, a commitment.

Finish by keeping the verse in mind: you copy it out, you say it again during the day, you come back to it in the evening.

An example with Joshua 1:8, which is offered here. You read: "This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth." Which word stops you? "Mouth": the word is spoken, not just read. What does that say about God? That he wants his word to be close to us, in our mouth. What does it change? "Today, I'll repeat a verse in a low voice on public transport."

If you are in a hurry, keep three questions: what does it say, what does it say about God, what must I do. If you are a beginner, don't force yourself to do all six: start with two.

What the Bible says

Here is the instruction given to Joshua as he takes over from Moses:

“This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.”

Meditation is tied to action: "that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein." It is not limited to an inner experience, it prepares obedience. The prophet Jeremiah describes the one who trusts in God as a tree:

“Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.”

This tree spreads out its roots by the river: it draws up water. Meditation is a way of sending out roots. And the first psalm associates delight and meditation (Psalms 1:2): the order is not "you must meditate," but "you will find your delight in meditating."

Pitfalls to avoid

Emptying your mind. Biblical meditation is not an exercise in mental emptiness. On the contrary, it is filling yourself with a specific word. You are thinking about something, and that something is the Word.

Looking for an experience. Some days, nothing comes. That is not a failure. The fruit of a meditation is often invisible at the time.

Making the verse say what you want. Meditating doesn't mean projecting. Check the verse's context: who was it speaking to?

Jumping from verse to verse. A meditation means staying. If you change verses every minute, you are channel-surfing. Choose one and come back.

Staying alone with difficulties. If the verse leaves you puzzled, note your question and talk about it with someone more experienced.

Today, take a verse. Ask it the six questions, then keep it in mind.