by Brian Carpenter
Wilhelmus a Brakel, a 17th century Dutch Puritan, gives us a wonderful explanation of the practice of spiritual meditation in the fourth volume of his work, The Christian's Reasonable Service. This practice is, I believe, a critically important factor in growing in godliness. To meditate is to learn to "let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly." (Col 3:16)
Brakel defines holy meditation or spiritual reflection as "a spiritual exercise in which a godly person—having a heart which is separated from the earth and lifted up towards heaven—reflects upon and engages his thoughts toward God and divine things with which he was already previously acquainted. He does so in order to be led further into divine mysteries, to be kindled with love, to be comforted, and to be stirred up to lively exercises."
It is first of all, an active process. We do not sit idly by with blank minds and wait for the Holy Spirit to come and give us a little spiritual truth. We choose a subject upon which we would like to fill our minds. My own means of choosing a subject or a scripture involves a careful examination of my own behavior and an inquiry into why I do what I do.
Very often I find that I do what I do because I believe things are true which are actually lies. For instance, very recently I began to struggle with a sin which had not plagued me much in some time. Suddenly my appetite for this sin became, periodically, ferocious. As I sat in my armchair one morning and pondered what had changed inside of me that this sin had suddenly become so attractive again, I was led to several conclusions. Most of the time sin is fun, so there was a component of pleasure in it, but I often find that it really isn't that much fun at all when I'm in the middle of it. There was a component of fear in it, too. I seemed to be assuming that if I didn't commit this sin, there would be other bad effects in my life which were related to this sin, and which this sin seemed to promise to head off...
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