Meditating on the Word of God

[Written by William Monroe]

Lately I’ve been thinking about what it means to meditate on the word of God. God calls us to meditate on his word day and night.

Psalm 1:2, “but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.”

Ok. I don’t do that. If/When I try, or even ponder what that would look like, I’m overwhelmed. I think I understand what that means, but practically speaking, how do I do that? Let’s check another passage.

Joshua 1:8, “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.”

Still, that feels like a tall order. This kind of meditation is promised in this passage to be a good thing, clearly, but again I come back to, how?

I think there are two practical things that can encourage us with this call to meditate on the word day and night.

First, looking at a little bit of context, in Joshua 1:5, it says “Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you.” So this seems like a piece of the puzzle, and personally one of the most encouraging things is that God is with us continually, much as he is asking us to be with him.

I saw a meme recently that said, “I don’t believe in bigfoot. He never believed in me, every piano recital I ever had, I would look into the audience and see one empty seat.”

The beautiful thing here is God isn’t being like bigfoot in this scenario. This passage reminds us that God absolutely is with us and caring for us in a present way.

Secondly, as a music lover, I think songs have an excellent role to play here. Have you ever gotten a song stuck in your head? What types of songs get stuck in your head? Frequently for me, it is the chorus of a song that will get stuck in my head that will lead me back to the depth and richness of well-written verses.

Sometimes repetition and simplicity is looked down upon in church music, but when used appropriately, even if it isn’t our preference, the result can be unintentional meditation on the word of God!

Now full disclosure, contemporary music which adds a chorus to traditional hymns isn’t always the most successful from a pure musicality aspect, but by adding some repetition, it can lead us to that meditation on the full depth written into the rest of the song. A good example of this is the version of Amazing Grace with the “My Chains are gone” chorus.

My favorites are ones that incorporate a beautiful chorus in a way that has great continuity AND is adapted straight from scripture. A good example of this is the Ellie Holcomb song, “Fear Not”, based on Isaiah 43.

This is my preferred method for writing songs for congregational singing. If scripture is used as the base text, there is little need to stress that the theology is right. Here are two of my songs that are written this way:

So next time you are trying to be more meditative, turn on some music and remember that God is with you!