How Meditation Will Transform Your Life
By: Olugbenga Ojuroye
Tags: Mindfulness, Christianity, Religion, Spirituality, Faith

Meditation is the key to unlocking the power of God’s words. Continuous meditation will transform your life. It releases the kind of energy that makes you better than you were before.

In the process of meditation, four crucial things happen:

God reveals who you are

God shows you who He is

God tells who He wants you to be

God shows you the steps to follow

It’s that simple. And I understand that sometimes amid the chaos, prayer may seem strenuous, and there’s a lot of confusion as to which voice is God’s. But in quietness and rest, you will hear Him. Without a shadow of a doubt, you will know your Father’s voice.

Know thyself

Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. (James 1:23–24, NIV)

Whenever you’re in a situation, the first place to check for the fault is to examine yourself. Never assume everything is right with you when everything is going wrong around you. Check to see if there’s a log in your eye. Is the trunk larger than the speck you thought it was? Is your heart not as anchored in Christ as you thought it was?

The beauty of our relationship with God is that He never hesitates to let you know when you’re missing it. Every single person in the Bible had a flaw. Whether it was minor or significant, they all had dents in their characters that needed work. And God never hid their imperfections from us.

The Bible is a book of full disclosure. It doesn’t mince words. How would we ever learn about Him or be drawn to Him if He didn’t disclose the shortcomings of those who walked the road before us? How could we be children after God’s heart if God didn’t show what a mess David made of things?

The hallmark of our relationship with God is not that we never sin, or that we never cheat, deny Him, lose our temper, commit murder, destroy our marriages or do whatever abominable thing we can. It’s that even if we do these things, we can come back to God, and He’ll say, “Let’s go again.”

I dare say that the main reason we come to God is not only that He can make our lives better. It’s more the fact that no matter the mess we’ve made of our lives before, and even after we’ve met Him, God will make our lives better.

That’s why His love is attractive: He can love you through anything.

Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash

The awesome God of magnificent wonder

The scariest time of Job’s life was not when he lost his wealth and children or when the oozing boils started to cover his skin. The time he was most afraid was when he provoked God to read out His resume.

God spoke at length, with thunder crashing one after the other, the drum rolls of heaven, as He fiercely defended His great name. In four chapters, a hundred and twenty-six verses, He questions everyone who has ever doubted His existence. He demands an explanation from those who have questioned His justice and mercy. He asks a simple but powerful question:

Can you do what I do?

If you remain close to God, He will never leave you without an assurance of who He is.

When God spoke to Job, God spoke through the storm (Job 38:1). Up until that point, there was no record of a storm. But there was a storm brewing in the life of His friend Job.

Meditation on God’s words may not immediately get you out of the storm. But He speaks right in the place where you are most scared and vulnerable. God speaks to let you know that the noise of your problems can’t stop the sound of His voice.

He speaks to show you He’s got you covered and to let you know that He is your anchor. God reminds you of who He is, compared to your storm. God is reliable.

We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. (2 Peter 1:19, NIV)

Then He calls you complete even before you take the first step

As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.” He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed — the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not. (Romans 4:17, NIV)

There’s a point you get to while meditating on His word that you know that God has fixed the problem.

“God has healed me” seems to make more sense than the symptoms and the doctors report.

“God has made me rich” begins to make more sense than your empty wallet and bank account.

“I have a peaceful marriage” becomes more real than the letter of divorce you got in the mail.

When the word of God begins to make more sense than the waves crashing around your boat, and you can go to sleep when everyone around you is wailing, then you’ll know that the day has dawned and the Morning Star has arisen in your heart. Before meditation transforms your life, it will change your thinking.

David could say:

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. (Psalms 23:5, NIV)

David had enemies fighting for his crown until the day he died. Yet he was just as sure of the table God had prepared before him.

Photo by Casey Horner on Unsplash

Sooner than you think, the light in your heart shines through

Meditation is a feast. The more you feast on what God has shown you in your heart, the more that light shines through to the world.

God set the table before David in the presence of his enemies, but David’s enemies never saw it. As David feasted at that table, the more things changed around him.

The key to changing the world around you is doing what God has shown you in the place of meditation.

When you spend time with God, He gives you a blueprint for your future. It may not be the full picture. But He gives you enough light for the next step ahead.

The light only gets brighter as you act. The more you feast within, the more things change on the outside. New information comes your way that would lead to transforming actions.

But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it — not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it — they will be blessed in what they do. (James 1:25, NIV)

Increase the light with your words

In the process of meditation, God takes your mind through different levels of light. Meditation gets you to a place where your heart shines so brightly. You no longer doubt who you are in Christ, and you’re clear on the next steps you need to take.

But there are two points to meditation that make God’s word come alive: speaking and repetition.

In the New Testament, Jesus emphasized the power of our words when He asked us to speak to the mountain.

“Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. “Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. (Mark 11:22–23, NIV)

He practiced this before He set the principle. Then we see Him emphasizing repetition.

Keep on asking and it will be given you; keep on seeking and you will find; keep on knocking [reverently] and [the door] will be opened to you. For everyone who keeps on asking receives; and he who keeps on seeking finds; and to him who keeps on knocking, [the door] will be opened. (Matthew 7:7–8, AMPC)

Take His promises and speak His light into your life. Believe God with everything you’ve got as you call yourself what He has declared you to be.

In the quietness of your heart and in those times when thoughts of doubt disarm you, always remember to study, think, speak, and repeat.