May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to You, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer. Psalm 19:14 NLT
Do you press repeat on the tape player in your mind? Do you ruminate on past conversations, hurts, snubs? Do you contemplate how imperfect you look/act/are? Do you spend an exorbitant amount of time fixing things in your mind that really can’t be fixed because it happened in the past?
In Hebrew, the word meditate is higayon and it means a murmuring sound, i.e. a musical notation, and by implication a machination. This word is only used 4 times in the Old Testament (Psalm 9:16; Psalm 19:14; Psalm 92:3; Lamentations 3:62).
Thus, the meditation of our hearts is a murmuring sound, an undercurrent notation playing throughout our day. It’s as if we have music playing in the background while we type, work, garden, do life. It’s always on. Well, for women, it’s always on. For guys, they have the ability to waffle box life so they may or may not have an undercurrent of sound. How? I have no idea but they tell me it’s possible.
What we have going in and through our minds matters. Especially if we have it on repeat. Meditating on a problem and seeing it from all angles and nuances, “He said, she said” ad nauseum – it’s not a great way to use our brain cells. Our brains are a massive machine capable of much but why do we clog them down with things we cannot change? Like the past?
How do we change this cycle, rat race, merry-go-round? How do we finally stop the endless loop of rumination taking us from the here and now?
Carefully determine what pleases the Lord. Ephesians 5:10 NLT
We are given a road map in Scripture on how to please God. Paul writes that we are to carefully determine what pleases God. Couple that with Psalm 19 and we see that our meditations should be pleasing to the LORD. What we have playing in our minds is what we are meditating on. Do we stop to think that meditation is not just set aside for one portion of our day, but it happens all throughout our day – most often subconsciously? Our minds wander, ramble, ponder, get stuck, muse.
Can we take every thought captive to the obedience to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5)? Will this give us a place to start taking control of our thought life? A resounding yes. By putting our thoughts in prison, we lock them up no longer giving them the ability to sabotage or hold us hostage. By grabbing those thoughts of past hurts, conversations and wrong thinking, we can force them into submission and obedience to Christ. He is all-powerful, He is mighty for breaking down strongholds (2 Corinthians 10:4).
Each time He said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in
weakness.” 2 Corinthians 12:9 NLT
God’s mighty power is unleashed when we admit our weaknesses. And in my day-to-day, I don’t know about you, but I need this power. I am not capable of pleasing God. I’m not. I cannot try hard enough or think smart enough. But in admitting that I need help, and in my desire to please the LORD, He takes over. I can officially press the stop button of the tape player that Satan has on repeat, belching out lies, destruction, shame and fear.
I’ll tattle on myself at this point. As I was praying and thinking about this post this morning, my mind began to wander; a normal occurrence for me. I was getting ready, thinking about my devotion and prayer time, meditating on what I needed to keep in my mind. But that was not all that was going on in there. My mind likes to multi-task. Not so great at times. I was also thinking about my feet. Or rather, they were screaming for attention and they won.
FEET - EPISODE 200.1
Yesterday I saw an orthopedic surgeon and he injected Marcaine into each foot – 2 ml in each foot right above the problem. Yikes. Wow. It was painful. My tolerance for pain in that area is zilch. I’m over big and little pain in the feet. Everything hurts at the epicenter of my injury (and it’s times 2). He asked me which foot I wanted him to attack first. I chose the right. It happens to be the worst one at the moment and I thought I might as well start there as not. Holding my daughter’s hand for comfort and a place to dig my fingers into – he slid the needle in. Words fail. The memory doesn’t and let’s just say my feet have a new language – how do you politely say the things they were screaming and maintain a Christ-like heart and attitude? You don’t. I practiced my long-ago-learned Lamaze breathing and held on. It was over in 5 minutes and that included both feet.
Twenty-four hours later: there is less mobility, more swelling and additional pain. I was hoping and praying these injections would get me over the hump, so to speak, in my recovery. It’s not that I am stuck, but rather, life is hard, it’s painful and trying to retrain my feet/legs/hips is excruciating. I know, no pain no gain. But that’s a slogan and pretty tough to live out. Up to this point I had been told by Coach to stop at any sign of pain. I guess the game plan has changed.
Anyhoo……when one is going to write on meditations of the heart, one needs to take stock of what the mind is actually meditating on. I would love to say that I was reviewing memory verses, singing, praying out loud. Honestly, I was ruminating on how long it's been, how limited I am, another day in my room, how disappointed I was with this new procedure.
Folks, this was what I was thinkin’ on.
But. Yes, there is a big but. I stopped myself. I actually took these thoughts captive and began to meditate on the things of the LORD. I began to ponder a devotional I wrote about our thoughts and then on Psalm 19:14. I desired to please God in all that I did and I came to the conclusion that my mind was on repeat and not on God. I repented and moved on.
When we meditate on damaging thoughts, lies, shame and anything the enemy throws at us, we lose sight of God and pleasing Him. I believe this is where we have gone sideways in our society. We have allowed the undercurrent notations of our minds to possess our thoughts on endless repeat and have not taken the time to press STOP.
My desire is to have my meditations be pleasing to God. What about you? What are you thinking about? Are you desiring to please God in your thought life too?
PRAYER
Father God, I do want to please You in all my thoughts, ways, deeds. I want to demonstrate that love for You in the secret places of my heart and mind. Cleanse me and I will be white as snow. Make me new. Create in me a clean heart and a clean mind. I trust You. I worship You. AMEN
