10/9/12- Meditating and peace

Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. (Joshua 1:8)

(My wife with a dog at her head and a dog at her feet- all asleep and at peace!)

Thought: Christian meditation, in contrast to more eastern meditation, seeks not to empty the mind, but to fill it with scripture.  We used to have a saying, "chew on this" meaning- think about it over and over.  Scripture is like a big chocolate ball that you don't want to just swallow whole, but you want it to remain in your mouth where you can enjoy it over and over.  We taste and see that the Lord is good by meeting with Him regularly to think about Him.
Meditating on God's Word is taking a little time out of the life that He gives us to center and settle ourselves- not into nothingness- but into Him.  Meditating on God's Word is like putting ourselves into His hands.  I have a small toy poodle that every morning will go around in circles-restless- until I pick her up and sit her beside me (she is there right now).  Once she gets in the chair beside me, she gives a big sigh and goes right to sleep.  She wants to just be near.  I have that same kind of relationship with God.  I am restless until I get near- coming to God in His Word- chewing on what He has for me today.
One of the benefits of this Forty Days in the Word program is it gives us a taste of what it feels like to regularly meet with God.  I can get so tired of looking at the TV and internet- political stuff that I cannot control, I can only get into just so many sports games.  Meeting with God is a chance to go deeper in life and to find a jolt of fulfillment that leads us to be the kind of person we were meant to be.  That is... prosperous and successful.  Prosperous and successful does not necessarily mean rich (though it may mean that).  We have been programmed in our culture to think in terms of money.  Money was not common in Joshua's day.  But the prosperity was in fulfilling God's will (in his case conquering the land).  We find our best fulfillment when we fulfill God's will- being the kind of person God has made us to be- reaching our full potential.  We cannot truly fulfill God's will for us without listening to Him- and we hear Him most clearly in His Word.

Prayer/Memory Verse: "Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law."