Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Meditation – empty your mind?

Is meditation about emptying your mind?
Biblical meditation is more about filling your mind with one thing.

However meditation does involve quieting our minds.  There are some who would object to this claiming that this is just different words for emptying your mind.  But I know that my mind is often chattering. Thinking of the book I am reading, recalling the movie I watched last night, imagining the one I am waiting to come out, reviewing what I need to do today, replaying the conversation that didn’t go so well with my wife, worrying about my kids… and on and on it goes.  Chattering almost non-stop.
Sometimes I just need to quiet my mind so that I can listen better to Jesus.  Quiet my mind so that I can actually focus on what I am reading in the Bible.  Quiet my mind so I can meditate.

A couple of things that I have done that help quiet my mind.
Focus on my breathing for a couple of minutes.
Repeat a phrase.  One I use “Abba, I belong to you”.
When thoughts come in acknowledge my thoughts and then put them aside (sometimes even write them on note pad so I don’t have to worry about forgetting).

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