Christian meditation is different from much of what gets called meditation today. The goal isn't to empty your mind but to fill it with a text: to read a passage from the Bible slowly, think it over, and ask what it means for your own life. The Bible itself talks about meditating on God's word day and night.
The Watchtower, the magazine of Jehovah's Witnesses, describes a simple four-step approach: pray for understanding before you read, use your imagination to picture the event, reflect on what you read and how it applies to you, and apply it in everyday life. That last step is the one most often skipped.
Pick a way to start:
- Read slowly if you want to keep it simple.
- Four steps if you want a method.
- Carry a verse if you want the text to stay with you through the day.
- Read together if you want to go further.
A first step today: choose a short passage from the Bible, read it slowly twice, and write down one sentence about what it says to you.
Christian meditation means reflecting on a text, usually from the Bible. Unlike much of what gets called meditation today, the goal is not to empty your mind but to fill it: to read a passage slowly, think it over, and ask what it means for your own life. This article explains what sets Christian meditation apart from other forms, describes a simple four-step method, gives you four ways to start, and shows you how to keep the habit going. For how to build a spiritual habit more broadly, see the guide to faith and spirituality.
Christian meditation fills the mind
Many forms of meditation are about letting go of your thoughts, or resting your attention on your breath. Christian meditation goes the other way. It starts from a text and lets your thoughts work with it.
The Bible itself talks about this. Psalm 1:2 describes the happy person as one who delights in God's law and reads it day and night, and in Joshua 1:8 Joshua is told to read the book of the law day and night. The word often translated as "read" or "meditate" carries the sense of pondering and speaking half aloud to yourself. It's not about reading a lot. It's about letting what you've read sink in.
That's why Christian meditation suits people who find it hard to sit in silence with an empty mind. There's always something to come back to: the text.
A four-step method
There are many ways to reflect on a text. One of the simplest is described in The Watchtower, the magazine of Jehovah's Witnesses, in the study article Draw Strength From Your Bible Reading from March 2021. It breaks reading into four steps.
Pray. Before you read, ask for help to understand and to see what the text might mean for you. If you're facing a particular problem, mention it in your prayer.
Use your imagination. Picture the event you're reading about. Try to see what the people saw and feel what they might have felt, and put yourself in the main character's place.
Reflect. Think through what you've read and how it applies to you. The article compares this to putting together a puzzle, where the pieces form a picture. Ask questions: What did the main character do? How did they get help? What can I learn from it?
Apply. Use what you've learned in a decision or a situation. The article points out that prayer, imagination and reflection don't amount to much if they don't lead to something in your life.
The article and the Bible are free to read on jw.org, in many languages.
Four ways to start
Choose the one that feels closest to you. You can always switch, or add another.
Read slowly. For you if you want to keep it simple. Choose a short passage, a few verses from a psalm or from the Gospels, and read it twice, slowly, ideally half aloud. Pause on a word or sentence that catches you. First step: read a passage this way tonight and write down the sentence that stayed with you.
Four steps. For you if you want a method to stick to. Follow the steps above with a story from the Bible, one with people you can put yourself in the place of. First step: choose a story and go through the four steps tomorrow, in ten minutes.
Carry a verse. For you if you want the text to stay with you through the day. Choose a verse in the morning, write it on a note or learn it by heart, and come back to it a few times during the day. First step: choose a verse tonight and write it on a note you'll see first thing tomorrow morning.
Read together. For you if you want to go further. This is the most demanding path, because it asks you to share. Read the same passage as a friend, your family or your congregation, and talk about what you each noticed. Other people often see something you missed. First step: ask someone today whether the two of you could read the same passage this week.
How to keep the habit going
The same time and the same place every day make it easier. Start short, ten minutes is enough, and it's better for the time to happen every day than to be long once in a while. Write down one sentence after each reading, and over time you'll have your own collection of what has spoken to you.
There will be days when the text feels empty. Keep going anyway, more briefly if you need to. If you hold on to the habit through the empty days, you'll still have it when they're over.
A first step today: choose a short passage from the Bible, read it slowly twice, and write down one sentence about what it says to you.
If you'd like to start with a voice guiding you, the first part of this series is about guided meditation.
This is the understanding and a first step. Atlas is where it becomes a habit. Add Faith & spirituality as its own area, and you'll find Today's text, where you write down what you read and the sentence you're taking with you, along with Time for prayer and Fellowship as suggestions to make your own. Try Atlas free for 7 days, and cancel whenever you like.