The Trifecta
One of the books I am reading right now is called, “Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life”, by Donald S. Whitney. In it, he talks about the spiritual disciplines he believes are necessary for the purpose of pursuing Godliness. Something that has stood out to me so far is this idea that scripture intake, meditation, and prayer go hand in hand. He argues that scripture intake leads to prayer output when there is a link of meditation in between. The idea is that meditation allows us to take what we have read in God’s word and think deeply on it, digest it, and then speak to God about it through meaningful prayer. This is what I think it means to have a soul connection with God. I believe this is how we can love God with all our soul.
George Muller, who is regarded as one of the most God-anointed men of prayer ever seen by the world, discovered this link in the spring of 1841, and it transformed his spiritual life. He had this to say about reading the word and then meditating on it:
“The result I have found to be almost invariably this, that after a few minutes my soul has been led to confession, or to thanksgiving, or to intercession, or to supplication…The result of this is that there is always a good deal of confession, thanksgiving, supplication, or intercession mingled with my meditation, and that my inner man almost invariably is even sensibly nourished and strengthened…”
What is this inner man he is speaking about? His soul of course.
Don’t get me wrong, I love books, sermons, and podcasts about Christianity as much as the next person. Okay maybe not podcasts, although I am thoroughly enjoying the one Pastor Nic introduced me to called, “Unlearning Youth Group”, right now. I believe there is a lot we can glean from other people’s experiences with God and faith. I believe that there will always be wisdom to be learned from other Christians on this journey. I also believe that at some point, we have to stop relying solely on others to tell us what God’s word says (through books, sermons, podcasts, etc), and start relying on God to tell us what His word says (through scripture intake, meditation, and prayer).
Think about the strongest relationship you have with someone. How did you get there? Did you let other people tell you everything you needed to know about that person? Did you read a book about that person? Was there a podcast about him/her that really solidified your connection? I would be willing to bet not.
If I had to guess, I would say you spent time with that person. I would guess you had conversations with that person. It works the same way with God. We are lucky enough to have unlimited access to His word in this country. That is where we spend time getting to know Him. We read His word and meditate on the things we discover. Then we connect with Him in prayer and allow Him to speak to us and show us how the things we learned in His word apply to our individual lives right now.
I have a fear about local churches today. I worry that, despite being well-intentioned, we are teaching people to examine their lives first and then, take the things they find within themselves to scripture to search for answers. I am not saying that we should not turn to scripture for answers when we are struggling with something. We absolutely should. What I am saying is I feel like we might have it backwards. I think we should be teaching people to go to scripture first and allow God to reveal to us, through meditation and prayer, the places in our lives that He wants us to examine. I could be very wrong about this, but that makes much more sense to me.
When we go to scripture first, we take the focus off of us and place it on God. We go to scripture to discover God. Reading scripture allows God to speak to us and reveal His heart. When we meditate, we are leaning into what has been revealed to us in our reading. This meditation allows God to enter into our thought process. The conversation begins to shift here. We begin to dialogue with God during our meditation. When we allow God to dialogue with us during meditation, we allow Him to bring things to our attention that we need to act on (confession, thanksgiving, intercession, and/or supplication). The conversation begins to shift again here. This act of meditating should always lead to prayer. Prayer is when it is our turn to speak to God in response to what He has revealed to us in our dialogue (meditation) with Him. This is our chance to actually do something in response.
The goal of scripture intake is never to just gain information and then walk away and sit on what we learned. God is not interested in a bunch of people full of head knowledge about Him. Scripture intake should lead to action in some way. It should encourage and empower us to do something. It should change our hearts. Meditation is what turns our head knowledge into heart knowledge and pushes us to action...prayer. This is where we begin to connect with God on a soul level. The obedience that results from scripture intake, meditation, and prayer is how we love God with all our soul.
All that said, this is ultimately just the opinion of a fellow believer, walking along this journey with you, trying to figure it all out just like you. I am no expert, nor do I play one on TV, so don’t take my word for it. If you decide to try this method out, I would love to hear how it goes for you.