BLESSED BY A MEDITATION PRESCRIPTION FOR THE HEART
Many if of us older adults take medication to prevent or treat heart trouble. Because of all the medicines on the market today, we tend to live longer than did our ancestors, and we have learned the value of taking medications prescribed by our doctors.
In the spiritual realm, we must be concerned also about the condition of another kind of “heart” – referenced in the Bible as our innermost being – that sphere within us where thinking, will power and emotions originate.
References to “the heart” can be physical or spiritual in nature. Physically, we must try to keep dangerous plaque from building up in the arteries of the heart. Spiritually, we must try to keep deceitful temptations from building up at the core of our very being.
We must avoid letting sinful thoughts occupy our minds . . . sinful desires control our wills . . . unhealthy emotions erupt into sinful actions. How?
God’s Word prescribes Meditation for the prevention and treatment of spiritual problems we may be exposed to during our daily walk - as children of God, as sinners saved by grace, as Christians seeking to please the Lord.
God’s prescription for healthy spiritual living is laid out by the psalmist in Psalm 119:9-16 . . .
By treasuring God’s Word in our hearts and minds, the young in heart will keep from sinning against God . . . seek to better understand God’s Word . . . take God’s Word seriously to such an extent that we will rejoice in the relevance of its message to every one of life’s situations.
Why not take a cue from the psalmist and ask ourselves a question whose answer is obvious? After all, the question and answer technique of teaching was employed by Jesus quite often because of its effectiveness. The question is:
“How may I, as old as I am yet as young in heart as I aspire to be, clean up my act and enjoy my life fully?”
In the context of this psalm – a psalm that praises God for His Word and prays to God for help in living His Word - there is an obvious answer to this question of purity - and that is, “Keep pure by keeping God’s Word”!
The Hebrew word translated “keep” is a powerful word! Three meanings may be attached to it - and the psalmist does not miss a one of them:
(1) Guard your heart by the Word of God (v. 9) . . . (2) Seek the Lord with all your heart (v. 10) . . . (3) Store the Word in your heart (v. 11) . . .
Let the “young in heart” engage in a “whole-hearted search” for the truth found in God’s Word, and store it for use when needed to “keep the heart holy” - sort of like, “Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket, never let it fade away; catch a falling star and put it in your pocket, save it for a rainy day.”
Treasure bits of truth as if they were ounces of prevention and use them as needed. After all, as mama said, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Remember what Jesus said? “For where your treasure is there will your heart be also.” Bur it’s one thing to amass a treasure chest of sayings and statutes from God’s Word, it’s another thing to apply them to situations and circumstances due to a lack of understanding on our part.
So: It behooves us as children of God to be humbly submissive to our Lord’s instructions that are received by us in direct proportion to our attentiveness to the guidance of the Holy Spirit whom God sent to guide us into all truth.
Every day when Jesus was teaching at the temple, those who wished him harm sought to find ways to undermine his teaching even if it meant they would have to kill him. “Yet they could not find any way to do it, because all the people were so attentive (hung on, clung) to His words! “
Folks, when you are beset by your adversaries whether they be persons or problems, there is no better way to stave them off or to render them ineffective than steadfast reliance on God’s Word as interpreted by the Holy Spirit of God!
Confronted by Satan in the wilderness, and tempted by the Evil One to go against God’s Will, to succumb to the psychic thrill, gratification, the self-serving pleasures associated with getting caught up in the world’s evil schemes, Jesus responded, “Go away Satan. It is written: ‘Do not tempt the Lord thy God’.”
Led by the Spirit in the wilderness, Jesus understood the powerful effect of God’s Word. So must we!
Empowered by the Spirit, Jesus engaged his enemy with the “Sword of the Lord”. So must we. By doing so, Jesus prevailed. So shall we! Yes! We shall prevail over the enemies of fear, discouragement, depression and despair IF we immerse ourselves in meditation as prescribed by the psalmist . . .
In worldly forms of meditation, one of the requirements is that you empty your minds of all thoughts, but the discipline of scriptural meditation requires us to fill our minds with the Word of God.
Meditation prescribed by the Lord involves concentration, fixing our eyes on God’s Word with intense focus, giving our undivided attention, steadfast devotion to the precepts taught by the Word and interpreted by the Spirit.
Meditation prescribed by the Lord resolves to rejoice in God’s decrees not reject them . . . think seriously about God’s ways not sluff them off . . . delight in learning His ways not dread to listen to them for fear that His ways might require me to change my ways . . . remember the words of the Lord not forget them as if they were meant for a given period for a certain group of people.
Never forget: “The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Word of our God stands forever!”
Meditation prescribed by the Lord revolves, or you might say, ruminates in the minds and hearts of those who genuinely seek to know God’s truth and thus be set free from enemies that shatter lives.
One such seeker was Lori whose struggle to overcome her shattered life is an inspiration to all who know her. She distinctly remembers, as a child, when a man came to her home to say that her father had been killed in a car accident. Broken and without a father, her life soon fell under the tragic shadow of sexual abuse at the hands of a family member. Frightened and devastated, and without emotional support, she wrestled with her shattered life into adulthood.
Soon after graduating from high school she married a man who physically abused her. They had three beautiful children, but violence continued unabated. Lori once dodged a punch that left a hole in the wall – a hole she covered with a calendar to hide it, but she could not cover the huge hole in her heart.
After a nasty divorce, Lori found herself living through the nightmare of a custody battle. Sapped of her strength, she sank into deep despair.
Yet she would soon emerge out of her pit of anguish. She found a job and remarried. “But something”, she said, “was missing in my life.” She prayed to God daily for an understanding of His Will for her life.
In her new job, Lori travelled a lot and, one night staying in a motel, she could not sleep, tossed and turned until finally she turned on the light, reached for a Gideon’s Bible, and read suggested Scripture passages that spoke to her feelings of emptiness, hurt and pain.
“God revealed to me that night in His Word answers for which I had been searching. That night I meditated on His Word, and have continued to do so to this day. And now, I know that in God’s sight I am somebody! God is my Father, Jesus is my Savior, and that relationship makes me a very important person. If there are others who have been through the pain and abuse I have gone through, I want them to know: God’s Word can get you through anything!”
“Thy Word, O Lord, is a Lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. I will hide Thy Word in my heart that I might not sin against Thee.” Amen.
