The Power to Focus:
A Meditating Mind – Part 1

Scripture Reading:  Psalm 119:98-104

Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long.

The Bible refers many times to meditating.  It is not a mystic ritual but a focused mind.  Webster defines the word “meditate” with words like “focus one’s thoughts on; reflect on or ponder over.”  I like Webster’s second suggestion for meditate: “to plan or project in the mind.”

            God has given us the power to meditate.  That means you have the ability to plan your thoughts.  Your thoughts are under your authority.  When you decide to keep thoughts around and continue to think about them, you are, at that point, meditating.  Whenever I have bad thoughts that have invaded my mind, I quickly dismiss them lest I start meditating on them.  The enemy of our souls is able to insert thoughts into our minds, but he does not have the power to force us to meditate on them.

            We normally think of meditation as an act that produces a peaceful state of mind, but the truth is, meditation can produce a lot of stress and anxiety as well.  The results of our meditation are solely based on the thoughts we’ve chosen to meditate on.  God has deemed to give us the power of choice in these matters.  Psalm 119:97 is referring to a choice.  The Psalmist David wrote: “Oh how I love your law, I meditate on it all day long.”  He made a great choice.  Tomorrow we will see why!

Father, as I go through my day, I will choose to meditate on your love and wisdom rather than the things of this world.  In Jesus’ Name, I pray, Amen.