Meditation

Joshua 1:8
8 This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.

Well, there’s a promise to grab onto! Meditate in the Word day and night and it will make your way prosperous and you will have good success. What is meditation? Is this some ritual where we sit in silence and ponder what the Word of God says? To a degree, yes, but it is much more then that. The word “meditate” comes from the Hebrew word “hagah” which means to ponder, imagine, groan, roar, and speak.

Surely that shines a new light on how we are to meditate in the Word both day and night. It’s not simply a matter of reading it and sitting quietly pondering what mystery God has hidden deep in the text; we are to be saying it, declaring it, and consuming it throughout the course of our days.

Have you ever said something, and then said it again with a different emphasis on a different syllable? Have you ever phrased a sentence and then said it in a completely different way, accenting different words? My father-in-law used to say, “I held her but for a moment.” Then he would say, “I held her but for a moment.” There’s a difference, right? It’s all in how you say it. The inflection you use, the pauses you create, have the ability to change the entire meaning of what is being said. This holds true for God’s word. While reading it silently may yield a revelation, speaking the same verse out loud may change the meaning entirely.

Yesterday I heard a preacher quote Genesis 22:8 “And Abraham said, ‘My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering’: so they went both of them together.” I heard it exactly how it is written here with an implied “for” between the words “provide himself”. Then, I spoke the same verse out loud to myself. Something completely different came out of my mouth than what I just heard on the TV. I said, “And Abraham said, ‘My son, God will provide Himself, a Lamb, for a burnt offering’: so they went both of them together.”

Instead of hearing God providing for himself a lamb, I heard God will provide Himself to be the Lamb. Both times I heard the truth, but it was only when I spoke the Word out loud that the full Truth was revealed.