What Do You Think?
But they delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night. Psalm 1:2
Some time ago I came across this pithy little statement: “You aren’t what you think you are, but what you think, you are.” What you meditate on, what you allow to capture your mind, what eventually captures your imagination, captures your heart and shapes your life and what you are becoming.
God’s Word tells us that we are what we think. And at the beginning of the Book of Psalms, we’re told that we are to meditate on God’s Word day and night. Meditation is more than just learning. The Hebrew word for it speaks of muttering and murmuring under your breath.
Christian meditation is nothing like Eastern meditation. It’s actually the exact opposite. Christian mediation is almost like taking God’s Word and drilling it deeply into your conscious mind. It is pondering. It is going over the truths of Scripture until they become enflamed in your heart and move your emotions.
Christian meditation takes time. We need to give ourselves enough time in God’s Word that it isn’t a simple academic exercise in which we’re writing down the answers. I try to get to a point where I am hearing God’s Holy Spirit speaking to me. Sometimes it brings me to tears. Sometimes it brings me great peace. Sometimes it brings me great joy. Sometimes I am very blessed by it, though not always. The goal is a response in our hearts. Christian meditation is more than just thinking; it is being moved by what we are thinking.
The righteous person meditates on God’s Word day and night. Not all of us do this perfectly. We all are beginners. We are all learning, and there is so much more to learn. Begin there. Begin somewhere today. You aren’t what you think you are, but what you think, you are.
