Responding to God’s Revelation

In his book Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God, Timothy Keller refers to prayer as our “personal, communicative response to the knowledge of God” (p. 45). This knowledge, of course, is either formed by our ideas or by God’s self-revelation, the Bible. For prayer to be effectual, God’s Word must be the foundation and springboard for how we commune with God.

Many of us struggle in prayer because we begin with our circumstances instead of the Scriptures. We read the Bible, but then set it aside as we move into our prayer list or routine. As a result, there’s typically a gap between what we’re reading and how we’re praying. When this takes place, prayer becomes more of a response to our situation than it does to the character and truth of God revealed in Scripture.

One of the most life-changing ways that we can bridge the gap between Bible reading and prayer is through meditation.

What is Bible Meditation?

What is Bible meditation? Meditation is NOT emptying our mind in order to experience inner peace or get in touch with our “true self.” In contrast, Christian meditation involves filling our mind with the truths of God’s Word so that we might draw near to God. It’s taking the time to slow down and think deeply on what we’re reading. Keller notes, “Bible meditation is taking the words of Scripture and contemplating them in such a way that your thoughts and feelings converge on God” (Keller, Prayer, p. 90). As we mediate on the Scriptures, our minds and hearts are enlightened, warmed, and prepared to respond to what God reveals about Himself in His Word.

Bible meditation enriches and enlivens our prayers. Having first listened to God speak through His Word, prayer enables us to enter into real conversation with God. Through meditation, fresh Scriptural insight replaces stale, mindless repetition as we pursue greater intimacy with the Lord in prayer.

Meditation Leads to Communion

Speaking on the relationship between meditation and prayer, George Muller notes:

“My practice had been, at least for ten years previously, as an habitual thing, to give myself to prayer, after having dressed the morning. Now I saw, that the most important thing I had to do was to give myself to the reading of the Word of God and to meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed; and that thus, while meditating, my heart might be brought into communion with the Lord… The result I have found to be almost invariably this, that after a very few minutes my soul has been led to confession, or to thanksgiving, or to intercession, or to supplication; so that though I did not, as it were, give myself to prayer but to meditation, yet it turned almost immediately more or less to prayer.”

Fueling Prayer with the Scriptures

In his pamphlet, “A Simple Way to Pray,” the Reformer Martin Luther explains how he used Bible meditation to fuel his times of prayer and communion with God. For example, while the Ten Commandments, Luther wrote,

“I divide each Biblical command into four parts, thereby fashioning a garland of four strands. That is I think of each commandment as first, instruction, which is really what it intended to be, and consider what the Lord God demands of me so earnestly. Second, I turn it into thanksgiving; third, a confession; and fourth, a prayer” (pg. 9-10).

Luther’s approach and prayer practice with the Ten Commandments certainly can apply to other Biblical passages as well.

Conclusion

So what are Keller, Muller, and Luther saying? In short, cultivate your prayer life in the rich soil of Scripture. Bridge the gap between what you’re reading and how you’re praying through meditation. Respond to the truths of God’s Word in praise, confession, thanksgiving, and petition. As you do so, you will begin to experience the promised joys and blessings of Bible meditation.