How to Meditate

Dannah Gresh: Meditation means a lot of different things to people. Gretchen Saffles talks about the meaning of true, biblical meditation.

Gretchen Saffles: Meditating is filling my mind with God’s Word. I want it to not just be in my mind, but to permeate my thoughts, my decisions, my feelings, my actions.

Dannah: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of A Place of Quiet Rest, for Thursday, January 6. I’m Dannah Gresh.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: If you’ve ever tried to read the Bible and felt like you just weren’t getting much out of it, you want to be sure to listen to today’s episode of Revive Our Hearts. Our guest is my friend Gretchen Saffles. She’s the author of a beautiful book called The Well-Watered Woman, and she heads up an organization called Well-Watered Women. Her heart, like ours, is to help women experience freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

Gretchen lives in the Atlanta area with her husband and two sons, and another little one on the way. I was so thankful that she took some time out of her busy schedule to chat with us about some ways that we can all do a better job of getting God’s Word into our hearts.

Dannah: Nancy, yesterday my heart was so reminded of how much I love being in God’s Word, and how much fruit it produces in my life when I’m faithful to open my Bible every day and just feast on it.

Nancy: Yes, Dannah; I felt the same thing. We are listening to our friend Gretchen Saffles—she’s been on Revive Our Hearts before, and we have her back again this week to talk with us about what it means to be well-watered women. It’s the water of the Word that waters our hearts.

So Gretchen, thank you for making us thirsty for Jesus, thirsty for more of His Word. If you missed yesterday’s episode, you want to be sure to go back and catch it at ReviveOurHearts.com or wherever you listen to podcasts. 

But Gretchen, as you were talking about how your grandparents, then your parents and other women in your life, older women, how God used them to give you, by the time you were in high school, a hunger and a love for His Word; Dannah had the same experience with people in her life. I had the same experience with a pastor, my parents, others in my life. I think all three of us could say by the time we were teenagers, maybe even younger, we were hungry for God’s Word.

I heard you talk about open your Bible, get into it, and you said some things like memorize it, study it. But I’m thinking about someone who maybe didn’t have all that influence, all that input, but they’ve tuned in. They’re listening to Revive Our Hearts, and they’re thinking, Wow, these women are making me hungry for God’s Word, but what do I do? 

If you’ve never cooked for years and years and then all of a sudden you have a husband and kids and you find yourself needing or wanting to cook or to make good meals, but you say, “I don’t know how to do it!” In fact, I used to say that cookbooks were made for people who don’t cook, because they’re using terms that you’re not familiar with and that you don’t know how to do. So I’m saying, “Give me Cooking for Dummies! Give me a Bible study for newbies, for just getting started.”

I find as I’ve watched some of the things you do on your social media and through the Well-Watered Women ministry, even though I’ve been reading and studying the Word for decades, you give me fresh inspiration and ideas. So, let’s just have a chat here, a bit of a coaching session. If you were going to disciple us or we were going to bring some younger women or new believers to join us at this little table where we’re having this conversation, how would we say . . . This is a big book! What do you do? You’re going to open it, and you’re going to say within twenty-five minutes, “I give up. I don’t know what to do.”

Dannah: Where do you start?

Nancy: Where do you start?

Gretchen: Yes. I think that’s where so many women find themselves. I spent a lot of my life doing the whole open it and hope that you land on a verse that’s going to make sense. And when it doesn’t you just try again and again and again, until you get something that, “Yes, that kind of makes sense to me.”

Nancy: Or you get discouraged, and you give up!

Gretchen: Right. 

Some of the first things that I would say is, number one, have a plan. I would encourage women to not do the whole open your Bible, pick and random verse method, but to rather read through an entire book of the Bible. If you’ve never read the Bible before, start in Matthew, start in the Gospels, and learn about Jesus, learn about who He is.

I would also encourage women to remember that Scripture wasn’t originally meant to just be where you choose one random verse here and one there. Scripture is written as whole books, whole letters to be read. So as you read, and if you can sit, read an entire one of the epistles, which is one of the letters, like the book of Philippians. Read it one sitting. It’ll take you maybe fifteen minutes to read all the chapters in it. That will help you be able to grasp what that author was trying to say.

Dannah: I didn’t really realize the power of that until this past year. My husband decided to read the whole Bible in ninety days.

Gretchen: Oh, wow!

Dannah: I’ve read the whole Bible, but I’ve never read it . . .

Nancy: Fast!

Dannah: It’s essentially in a sitting, right, fast! He said, “My brain was connecting dots I never knew were there because I read so much of it in such a condensed period of time.”

I just want to affirm, even if you might not want to read the Bible in ninety days, although go for it if your heart is stirred by that, but to just even read the four gospels, all in a short period of time. See how they fit together, while everything’s fresh in your mind, comparing Matthew to Luke. I love that idea.

Nancy: Here’s another approach to that: take a book, whether it’s Matthew or one of the epistles . . . (By the way, I’m glad you explained that those are New Testament letters, written mostly by Paul to others. My dad said that when he became a Christian, he thought the epistles were the wives of the apostles! So, you can’t take it for granted here!) But take one of those shorter letters or one of the gospels and read it over and over and over and over again.

Gretchen: Yes.

Nancy: I’ve heard of people taking a book of the Bible and reading it thirty times—however long it takes—so that you’re really putting it under a microscope.

So, sometimes you want to get the bird’s-eye view of how all the dots connect, and sometimes you want to just focus in. I’ve done both, you’ve both done both of those approaches with great benefit.

Gretchen: Absolutely.

Nancy: Let me just back up a second, Gretchen. You said have a plan. I’m thinking, How do you have a plan? It’s not like there’s one right plan; we just mentioned a couple different ones. Just give us some ideas of what different plans might be.

Gretchen: Right. There are a lot of different Bible-reading plans out there. I’m currently doing a chronological plan. You’ll note that a lot of these plans are to read the Bible in a year. I know that I have done this before: I started to read one of those plans, and by January 15, I’m already behind. It’s easy to just go, “Oh, I’m not going to finish this.” Instead, for me personally this year, as I’m reading through the Bible, I have already determined it’s probably not going to be in a year. I have two young kids. I was sick recently, so for about a week I got really behind. Instead, my goal is just to read the Word. I have this plan, and each day I can read as much as I can that they have given me and mark it off, but it may take me three days to get through one of the days of reading.

What helps me is when I come to God’s Word, I’m not sitting there going, “What should I read today? There are so many different things.” Instead, I’m going, “Oh, I’m back in Exodus today,” because that’s where I am in this plan. There are plans like that.

There are plans that read through the New Testament, or even just the book of Matthew, like we encouraged you to read through the book in one sitting, if you can, and then to go back and start going through the book more slowly.

The third thing I would say is, write down what you’re learning. Write it down. It will help you remember, it’ll help you connect the dots, it’ll help you dig deeper, and it’ll also be a resource for someday. Maybe you’re studying the book of Matthew again and God is continuing to build upon that foundation and show you more and more of who Jesus is and what it means to live a gospel-centered life through the book of Matthew.

Dannah: Yes. The writing thing is really big for me. Dannah doesn’t remember it unless she writes it down.

Gretchen: Same. Yes.

Dannah: When I’m at church, I’m taking notes. It’s not because I’m super spiritual, it’s because I don’t remember! At lunch time, I will not remember. I was really excited about something the pastor said. Then, I don’t remember what it was.”

Gretchen: Yes.

Dannah: If I write it down, I never need the notes.

Nancy: That’s why the greatest joy, I think, of my nearly sixty years of knowing Jesus and reading the Bible has been the last four years. I have gone through the Bible at not a pell-mell pace, kind of slowly, journaling in a journaling Bible with margins. We’ve talked a lot about this.

I write next to each passage. Sometimes I’m just summarizing the passage, sometimes I’m paraphrasing, just so I’m thinking it through. That’s meditation. In my own words, what is this saying? Sometimes I’m highlighting key themes or looking at repeated words that are there for emphasis. Sometimes it’s writing prayers in response to what I’ve read. Sometimes it’s just listing things that I learn about God or that I learn about myself or my sin or grace. But it’s writing something down.

Otherwise, how many times have we had the experience of reading even a good chunk of Scripture and then getting up and realizing, “I don’t even remember what I just read”?

Dannah: Yes. Just cross it off the list.

You know, what you’re saying right now, Nancy, is speaking to my heart, because every day you respond to the Word a little bit differently. That is how I think we stay out of a legalistic approach to, “I have to fill up one page in my journal. I have to read one psalm, one proverb. I have to fill out some blanks in my Bible study.” When we go to the Word, we have a plan. But then we’re like, “Okay,” and we ask God’s Spirit to let us know, “Is today a day I study, I roll up my sleeves and learn what the Greek says, or is today a day I write a song of praise back to You?” You’re allowing that room for each day to be a little different and to be directed by the Lord.

Nancy: You may be a person of real habit and order. My dad, from the day he met Jesus in his mid-twenties till the day he went home to heaven twenty-eight years later, he had the same plan for every single day of all those years. He would read two chapters in the Old Testament, one chapter in the New, five psalms, and one proverb. So, he’d go through the New Testament twice a year, Psalms and Proverbs every month, and the Old Testament once a year. That was his plan. But he never let it get stale or old. He let God keep speaking to him, keep changing him, keep transforming him. He would soak in it.

I need more variety than that, so I’ve done a lot of different plans, and by the way, we have at ReviveOurHearts.com a link that will take you to a list of different plans to just give you some specific ideas. What works for you in this season of life—for this year, as we’re starting into a new year—may be different than what was helpful to you last year or what will be helpful to you next year. 

Dannah: Head to ReviveOurHearts.com, then find the transcript of today’s program, and that’s where we’re putting the link to those Bible reading plans. 

Nancy: I think what they all do is get us to actually open the Bible, not let it just sit there collecting dust on our nightstand, or just collecting good intentions, but we actually open it and we read it. We read it prayerfully. We say, “Lord, this is Your Word.” When the Bible speaks, God speaks. How amazing is that? To say, “Lord, I want to listen to You. This is where You have made known to me Your will, Your ways.” This Word is alive, and if I will read it and then meditate on it . . . Let’s talk about that word for a minute.

That seems like some far-out, strange thing to some people. It’s been used in far-out, strange ways. But what does it mean to you, Dannah, and to you, Gretchen, to meditate on the Word of God? God’s Word says if we do this, we’re going to be successful in every area of our lives. I mean, who doesn’t want that? So, what does that look like? What does that mean?

Dannah: Can I give you the super-simple True Girl definition of meditation?

Nancy: Please do!

Dannah: I think it’s so important. I really think meditation is what takes our Bible study out of our heads and gets it into our hearts. I tell girls—little girls, but hey, if you’re a fifty-year-old little girl, you can probably learn from this—meditation is when studying the Bible and listening to God, praying, talking to God, crash into each other. I take what I’ve just stirred around in my head, and I’ve understood, “What does this mean?” I’ve thought about it, but then I go to the Lord in prayer. Maybe it’s journaling. Maybe it’s noodling in the journal Bible. Maybe it’s writing a prayer. Maybe it’s talking out loud to God. That’s when I’ve begun to meditate. 

It could include a lot of things! It can include memorization; it can include writing out the Scripture over and over, that’s helpful. It can include anything. But it’s when you do those two things—studying and praying—that you’ve meditated.

Nancy: I love that, Dannah. What you’re really saying is you’re not just doing a fly by or pass over of the Word; you’re stopping.

My dad wanted us to learn. I don’t know why I’m thinking a lot about him today. He’s been gone so many years!

Dannah: Isn’t that sweet. I love it.

Nancy: He wanted us all to learn how to speed read, because he felt like that was a useful tool for life. But he said, “Two things you don’t speed read: one is love letters and the other is the Bible.” You don’t want to read those too fast.

Everything is interstates now. We’re going eighty miles an hour down the—well, we may not be going eighty—but you’re missing so many things. But meditation means: we stop; we smell the flowers; we pause; we think about what God has just said through His Word.

Gretchen, any other handles that you would put on that that are helpful to you as you meditate on God’s Word?

Gretchen: Meditating is filling my mind with God’s Word. I want it to not just be in my mind but to permeate my thoughts, my decisions, my feelings, my actions. So it’s taking what I’ve learned in Scripture, and it is going on a deep dive with the Lord and breaking it down in my mind. A lot of times I’ll go word by word, maybe. 

I was just in Psalm 23 recently. I wanted that psalm (and Psalm 1) to be something that I know like the back of my hand. I can say Psalm 23 or Psalm 1 right away. Both of them have this visual of meditating on God’s Word. In Psalm 23, as David writes, he was being refreshed and revived by the Lord. He is being revived as he lies down in His comfort and in His presence.

In Psalm 1, we learn that the righteous man meditates on God’s Word day and night. We think thousands of thoughts every single day. This was really interesting; I was looking that up recently. I think it was about 80 percent of what we think is negative and 90 percent is repetitive. So, every day we’re thinking negative, repetitive thoughts. Instead, meditation is an opportunity for me to think true thoughts that come from God’s Word. I want those to be what are on repeat in my mind, not negative thoughts.

Nancy: Those are going to replace the negative thoughts, displace them, and replace them with thoughts that are true. I love that.

Gretchen: Yes! For the woman who maybe struggles with negative thoughts, with anxiety, with fear, a lot of that is based in our thinking. We’re on this cycle of thinking about negative things. A lot of times if we say it out loud to somebody, we go, “Oh, that really is not true of God’s Word.” But when it’s on that cycle repeat, it feels really true in our minds. So, breaking that cycle through meditating on God’s Word, we want that to be what’s on repeat. We want that to be the melody that comes out of our minds when we are thinking and doing.

Nancy: Let’s open to Psalm 23 for just a minute here, because you said that’s where you were, and you’ve been meditating on that. If you’re having negative, anxious, fearful thoughts, how might you take a verse or a phrase from Psalm 23? You said something about going word by word. Can you just give us an example of how you might do that to replace and displace those negative, repetitive thoughts?

Gretchen: Absolutely. I know for a lot of women, including myself, it’s when your head hits the pillow at night, right? We lay our heads down. It’s been a busy day, everything’s finally settled. But when you lie down, all of a sudden all of the unsettled things, the undone things, come to mind right when we need rest. 

Nancy: And it snowballs! It gets bigger and bigger.

Gretchen: It does.

Dannah: Yes.

Nancy: And you can’t do anything about it!

Gretchen: In Psalm 23, it’s this invitation from God, who is our Good Shepherd, for us to come and rest. So the very first part says, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” Other versions say, “I lack nothing.”

A lot of times, I’ll stop there, because first of all, knowing that God is my Shepherd is what brings me comfort. I feel safe. I feel held by God. He is the One who is guiding me. He’s not leaving my side; He’s protecting me. Because God is my Shepherd—not because my life is under control, not because my life is easy—no, because God is my Shepherd, I lack nothing.

Not only that, but then He “makes me lie down in green pastures.” I don’t want to lie down! In my flesh I want to just keep going and be able to do it all. But God in His wisdom makes us lie down. He leads us beside still waters; He restores our souls. In those moments, I need that soul restoration.

When I’m meditating on this, I’m even picturing myself. I want to lie down in these green pastures of God’s Word. I want to rest in His promises, to be revived in His presence, and to know that as I’m going throughout my day my Shepherd is with me and He is leading me.

That has been the psalm that I’ve been meditating on, so that in an instant, if I’m feeling anxious or worried or overwhelmed, I can call it to mind right away. The Holy Spirit can pull that out from the storehouse of my soul.

Psalm 23 is six verses, and they are so full of truth. They are so full of wisdom and comfort. So, I will continue. I’ll sit there, and I’ll just go through it. I’ll talk to God. “God, You are my Shepherd.” I’ll confess to Him, “Right now, I’m wanting x, y, and z.” I’ll list it all out. “These are the things that I feel like I need, but in You I have no lack. I have no lack because Christ is risen. He is with me. He has conquered all of the things of this world, and I am His.”

I’ll go through and I’ll just preach that truth to my heart and really sift it through everything that I’m going through. I want to sift my thoughts through Scripture.

Nancy: I’ve heard people say about some of the old-time writers that when you pricked them what came out was Bible. They said their blood was “Bibline.” I’ve always kind of aspired, “When I get pricked, when I get jostled, when I get pushed, what comes out? Is it harshness? Is it anger? Is it fear? Is it discouragement?” I’m prone to put a negative spin on everything. That’s kind of my first knee-jerk reaction. (You can ask my sweet husband about this.) 

What I want to do is have my mind so filled with the Word that when I get jostled—when things don’t go my way or I’m frustrated with all there is to be done and how long my list is and how short the day is; those things I lie down with at night—I want what comes out of me and what comes to the surface to be Scripture. It’s God’s Words, it’s God’s ways. 

You don’t get that by just having a little, quick, drive-through experience—grab your spiritual vitamin for five minutes in the morning. That’s not going to get you through the day. Now, you may get God’s Word in snatches at a season of your life. You may not be at a season of your life when you can just have hours of uninterrupted Bible time. I’m sure, Gretchen, with two little guys in your home, you don’t get those long, uninterrupted sessions very often.

Gretchen: No!

Nancy: That’s a luxury. But you are going back to God’s Word over and over and over again throughout the day so that when those kids or husband or friends or social media people step on your last nerve, what’s going to come out is going to be . . . It’s not like I’ve become some angelic, godly, Spirit-filled woman. No, if I’m not filled with God’s Word, I’m going to be what comes out naturally, which is not going to be good. It’s not going to be pretty. But if I’m being filled with God’s Spirit, with God’s Word, then what’s going to come out is going to amaze me, it’s going to amaze other people, because it’s going to be God’s thoughts and not my own.

Gretchen: I’ve been through enough dark valleys in life to know that when you’re in those valleys, it’s hard to see the light. I have learned through those dark valleys when it’s harder to open up Scripture, I have to have this at the ready in my heart, that it can be pulled out right away in those moments. Everything in the world may feel like it’s falling apart, but God’s Word is what holds me together.

Dannah: Yes.

Nancy: Robert and I had a really precious conversation the other day with a recent widow who lost her husband due, at least to some degree, to maybe a doctor’s negligence—not intentional at all, but just something that didn’t get caught that probably should have.

This woman is just freshly grieving and had been married many, many years and didn’t expect at all to lose her husband the way she did or in the timing she did. She said she has really struggled with guilt that she should have asked more, she should have done more, she should have noticed more, she should have known more, she should have asked more questions of this doctor. She said the thing that is keeping her sane is that she is making herself write down (she’s been a woman of the Word for many years) the things that she knows are true—the things that are true about God, the things that are true about this situation, about His sovereignty. She said, “I’m writing it down.”

She’s in this huge storm, or dark place, as you just said, and those negative thoughts, those thoughts of her guilt or anger or bitterness at this doctor could overcome her. That could sink her, as those kinds of thoughts sink so many people today, and I think especially women. We dwell on things. We’re always meditating.

Gretchen: Right.

Nancy: What are we meditating on? If we’re meditating on the thing that went wrong and it becomes bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger in our minds—your husband or the doctor, they’ve moved on, but you’re still dwelling on it. If that’s what you’re meditating on, then you’re going to become this angry, bitter woman. But here she says, “All these years I’ve had this intake of the Word into my life, and now I have to pull it out. I have to write it down, to meditate on what I know is true about God.”

Now, her circumstances are true also, but they’re not ultimate truth.

Gretchen: Right.

Nancy: What is ultimate truth is that God is good, God is faithful.

We talked about that verse in Psalm 139 that says that every day of our lives was written in God’s book before one of them even came to be—the date of our birth, the date of our death (see v. 16). This was not a surprise to God; this was not an accident to God. If there was a doctor’s mistake, ultimately, God was over that. God was sovereign over that. She’s in raw, naked faith, clinging to what she knows to be true in this Book. But she couldn’t do that if she didn’t have it in her and if she hadn’t putting it in there for years.

Dannah: Right. Psalm 119:105 says that on those dark days, “His Word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.” We need that light and we need that lamp when life gets dark and difficult.

We’ve been hearing some helpful reminders in a conversation with our sweet friend, Gretchen Saffles.

Nancy: You know, I so appreciate Gretchen’s down-to-earth, practical advice.

I think that’s especially helpful at this time of year, when lots of us are trying to form some new habits.

Dannah: That’s right. One habit we are encouraging you to start or to reset and refresh is a daily time in God’s Word.

Nancy: That is so, so vital! You and I will never grow spiritually—we’re not going to be spiritually grounded or established—apart from a regular intake of God’s Word.

That’s why here at the start of this year, we want to encourage you to take advantage of a resource we’ve developed called, A Place of Quiet Rest Journal. If you’re not in the habit of having a daily devotional time in God’s Word and in prayer, it’s a great place to start. Or if you just need a fresh track to run on in your quiet time, I think it will be a big help to you. This journal walks you through thirty days of interacting with Scripture and recording your thoughts and your prayers. So many times I’ve had women share with me how helpful this has been to encourage them in their time with the Lord.

Dannah: That’s right, Nancy. Again, it’s called A Place of Quiet Rest Journal. This month it’s our way of saying thank you to you for your donation of any size. To give, just head on over to the ReviveOurHearts.com website, or call us at 1–800–569–5959. Ask for your copy of the daily devotions journal when you contact us.

Nancy: Speaking of donations, I want to pause here and say a huge thank you to all of our listeners who participated with us during the month of December in our matching challenge. We had a huge need, a total of $2.8 million. I’m thrilled to report to you that because of your generosity and the faithfulness of the Lord, that entire need was met, and beyond. Wow! We are so encouraged, so grateful, and so thrilled for what this means for the ongoing outreaches of this ministry in the year ahead.

If you prayed, thank you. If you gave, thank you. It means more than you possibly know to all of us here at Revive Our Hearts. And please don’t stop praying that the Lord will make us faithful in utilizing every dollar of those resources to reach more women in the year ahead.

Dannah: That’s right, Nancy. Thank you, friends.

Now, would you describe your relationship with God as intimate? Tomorrow, Nancy shares how to stay close to the Lord day by day. I sure hope you’ll be back for Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth challenges you to fill your mind with God’s Word and find freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

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