In this lesson we want to put together many of the concepts we have covered in earlier lessons and go through a time of hearing from God in a step-by-step way.

This process is meditation. Meditation in recent years has been associated largely with Eastern religions, but we need to remember that Christians have practiced godly Bible-centered meditation for centuries. You may be more comfortable using the term reflection or contemplation. I like the phrase "sitting before the Lord."

When King David began making plans to build a temple for the Lord in Jerusalem, the Bible records that he went in and sat before the Lord (2 Samuel 7:18). That is a very descriptive phrase to me—one that defines our spiritual demeanor more than our physical posture. The usual position for Jewish prayer through the centuries has been to stand in God's presence. David was sitting, kneeling and resting back on his heels, humbly listening for what God was going to say to him.

There are five basic steps in this process:

1. Setting aside time
2. Getting still before the Lord
3. Recalling the Lord's goodness
4. Making a request
5. Submitting the will to God's answer

As we discuss each step, I encourage you to think, How can I do this? It isn't enough to learn these steps. You need to do them and have an experience of listening to and hearing from God.

After we have gone through the steps of meditation, we'll turn to the results that virtually all people experience after a time of meditation:

1. A deep, abiding sense of inner peace
2. A renewal of a positive attitude
3. A feeling of personal intimacy with the Lord
4. An inner realization of purification
5. A passion to obey

If you truly approach your prayer and Bible-reading time as sitting in God's presence, how do you usually feel after spending time in prayer and reading God's Word? What would you like to feel?

Setting Aside Time with God

Meditation requires a commitment of time. I encourage you to think of this as a season of time. The exact length of time, whether five minutes or an hour, will be determined largely by your purpose and your state of being as you come before the Lord. If you are in deep distress or if you face a major decision in your life, you should count on spending a longer time with the Lord.

Discuss your need to be alone with the Lord with your family members and others who depend on you. Find a time and place where you can be exclusively with Him. Make an appointment with the Lord. I sometimes go away for a weekend or an entire week to be alone with God. At other times, I designate a half day to do nothing but sit in God's presence with my Bible open before me. Set aside enough time to go through the process of slowing down. It takes a while for us to turn our full attention away from the cares of the world.

In anticipation of your time with the Lord, ask the Lord to do these three things in your life:

1. "Lord, let me have an open mind and heart."
Don't come into a meditation time with a closed spirit.

2. "Lord, let me have a clear mind and heart."
Your desire must be to hear the voice of God with certainty and to have a firm understanding that what you have heard is in line with the totality of God's Word. Ask the Lord to remove any doubt or vacillation from your thinking.

3. "Lord, let me have an uncluttered mind and heart." Ask the Lord to help you put aside the worries, frustrations, concerns, hurts, and the daily cares you have about relationships, business, school, work, money, food, shelter, and so forth. Ask the Lord to help you stay focused on Him during your meditation time.

Your goal in coming before the Lord is to have a committed mind to hearing from the Lord, not to have a closed, cloudy, or cluttered mind. Ask the Lord to help you in this regard so that your meditation time will bear much good fruit.

The feelings associated with setting aside time are usually eagerness, anticipation, focus, self-control, purpose, and a hunger to hear from God.

Getting Still Before God

As you begin your time of meditation, get still before God. Fix your thoughts on Him. True stillness before the Lord involves a sense of relaxation and of total ease in the Lord's presence.

I find that the most wonderful stillness I feel in God�s presence is when I see Him as Friend, walking and talking with me along the beach or mountain trail, sitting beside me in an easy chair in my living room or study, sitting opposite me at the kitchen table. The Lord desires to be with you.

The feelings often associated with stillness are awe, wonder, awareness, closeness, ease, delight, and timelessness.

Recalling the Goodness of God

Many times in the Old Testament, the people of God were called to remember all the good things God did for them. As you spend time in stillness of heart before the Lord, call to your mind the goodness of God.

— Review your past. Think back over your life and recall the many times in which God has protected you, provided for you, blessed you, and cared for you.

—Reflect on the Lord Himself—His greatness, His grace, His goodness. You may find it helpful to recall some of the names of God in the Bible—Jehovah, Yahweh, Elohim—which point to the nature of God as being everlasting, infinite in power, absolute in faithfulness.

—Remember God's promises. His promises in the Word are for all of His children of every generation. He promises to provide for us and to work all things to our eternal good, to protect us from evil, to grant us His peace, to forgive us of sin when we turn to Him, to give us His Spirit, and never to leave or forsake us.

The feelings associated with this step of meditation are usually joy, faith, an outpouring of love, thanksgiving, humility, praise, a positive feeling about the future, and an eagerness to see what God will do next.

Making Your Request

So many of us rush to this phase. But how much more meaningful to make a petition to the Lord after we have entered into His presence with a committed mind and heart, having removed the hindrances of sin or false understanding about God that might keep us from hearing Him clearly. How different our requests are likely to be after we have spent time with the Lord, recalling His work in our lives, His glorious nature, and His promises to us. We are far more likely to ask for the genuine desires of our hearts, not mere superficial wishes.

State your request in as simple terms as possible. Get to the very heart of what you want the Lord to do for you, in you, or through you.

The feelings often associated with making a request are humility, release, and freedom. When you make an appropriate request before the Lord, you have a sense that you are asking something the Lord desires for you. If you have to build a case for your request, you probably are asking in error.

Submitting Your Will to God's Answer

As you make your request, be aware of any pride in your heart. Ask Him to remove pride from your heart.

Be aware of any unbelief that God can't or won't answer your request. Be aware of any answers that you are likely to reject out of hand even before God speaks. Ask Him to help you in your unbelief.

Pray again that the Lord will keep your mind open, unclouded, and uncluttered. Then, sit before the Lord and wait for His response to you.

The feeling one generally has at this point in meditation is a sense of giving up, surrendering, yielding, allowing, opening up, or receiving.

...Continued in the book below

The article above is an excerpt from Lesson 10 Recalling the Goodness of God in Listening to God, Thomas Nelson: Nashville.

Listening to God by Dr. Charles F. Stanley
God is not a speechless God. He speaks to you so that you can hear His message, receive it and understand what He wants you to do. When you realize that He can communicate with you personally, directly, and explicitly, listening to God becomes vitally important. Unfortunately most of us don't know how to listen to God. Dr. Stanley identifies the ways in which God gets our attention and speaks to us, how to differeniate between God's voice and Satan's voice, how to actively listen to God, and how to sit in God's presence. Appropriate for group or individual study.

© Copyright by HeartofWisdom.com

Looking for something? Try the Advanced Search