Chosen

OK, you can concentrate on your breathing. That’s a good way to slow yourself down, to restore calm, to quieten down.

But isn’t it kind of empty to just focus on your breathing – in, out, in, out?

One of the major UK newspapers carried an article on the weekend about the place meditation has in contemporary corporate environments, where many executives encourage their staff to take a break and – no, not have a KitKat (a British ad for a certain chocolate biscuit/cookie) – sit still, breathe deep, and meditate.

It mentioned TM. It mentioned just focusing on the breathing in, breathing out. It talked of emptying yourself. Of clearing your mind, and of that emptiness bringing refreshment.

It didn’t mention Christian meditation. No wonder. For too long the church has shied away from mentioning that meditation is one of the spiritual disciplines of Christians down through the centuries. People naturally associate meditation with the eastern religions, but it is orthodox Christian practice as well.

But Christian meditation is not about emptying your mind. It's about filling it with a growing knowledge of God. Not knowledge about God – for that you can just read your Bible or other commentaries or books. But a knowledge of God – an understanding deep within your being of just who he is. It’s about filling your mind with Truth so that you can recognize Lies when you hear them.

It's about reading a short section of Scripture, and reading it again and again, slowly, thoughtfully, until it's in your memory and in your very being for recollection throughout the day.

 

I’ve been filling my mind today with God’s words from the book of Isaiah, chapter 43. Just how fantastic are these words? “You have been chosen to know me, believe in me, and understand that I alone am God. There is no other God – there never has been and there never will be. I, yes I, am the Lord, and there is no other Saviour.”

Wow. You have been chosen. 

If you’ve ever applied for a job, entered a contest, filled in an application for a university, you will have had a period of waiting while you were longing to have those words communicated to you: you have been chosen. 

You didn’t have to apply for this. You don’t have to measure up. You don’t have to have attained a certain standard of anything. God says – “You have been chosen to know Me.”

When I chew that thought over, much like a cow chews her cud, all the negatives which may have crowded my day drain away and I am at peace. What does anything else matter?

God has chosen me. And you. To know him. Forever.

Wow.