My Meditation Motivation
- I want to learn how to quiet my mind.
- I want to improve my ability to think deeply about a single subject.
Its pretty much that simple. I want to learn to quite my mind for two primary reasons. The first is emotional control. In many situations, typically at work, my emotions can get going and distract me from my best thoughts, thus distracting from my best work. As a leader, I am much more effective if I am in control and responding with well thought out responses, instead of emotions. This is a skill that requires awareness and control, both of which are sharpened by meditation. This will be good for my job, my parenting and my marriage. It is for the benefit of those I care about most. It is for the benefit of those I spend the most time with.
The second reason is that I want to be able to quiet my mind in order to think deeply about a subject. Why would I want to think deeply about a subject? What subjects do I have in mind? Biblical principles and wisdom. As I was evaluating my own personal faith journey and thinking through spiritual disciplines, I began to think about meditating on God’s word. I began to think about meditating on truths and specific scriptures that resonated with me.
After all, meditation is a biblical principle to begin with. In Genesis 24 is an example of Isaac taking a stroll in the field to meditate. Psalms has multiple references to meditation, most specifically referring to the Law.
That’s when I realized I didn’t really know how. I did not know what meditation really was or how to go about it. So, I’m on a journey to figure it out. As I learn meditation as a skill, I hope to ponder specific topics during these sessions based on my current journey. It will be based on the scripture I am memorizing (because that is another discipline I am trying to practice) or the topic we are studying in our life group.
Another way to say this is that I really want to learn to listen. I believe that God speaks, but that we must be quiet in order to hear, including our own inner dialog. I wrote in a previous post about journaling questions I intended to pray about. My hope is that meditation becomes a time when I can spend time listening for answers.
