Fixated on God

I will meditate on Your precepts and think about Your ways. (Ps. 119:15)

I’ll admit it. I recently bought several issues of a popular magazine, which I almost never read, because each issue’s cover story was about a certain celebrity couple. For some reason I have an atypical (for me) fascination with the stars’ marital problems and their effect, as reported by countless gossip reporters, on their children. Not only have I bought the magazines, but I’ve also searched the Internet for more intimate details and have watched news stories about them. I have even found myself thinking about what advice I would give them if they were to ask.

During a recent quiet time, it occurred to me that my fixation on this couple looked a lot like how I should be fixated on God. If I spent the same amount of time reading about God in Scripture, digging deeper by going to commentaries and concordances, discussing God’s Word and His character with others, and thinking about Him throughout the day, such habits could have a profound impact on my walk. It sounds a lot like what God told Joshua and the Israelites as they were going into the promised land: Think about Him and His commands day and night, talk about them, recite them, write them all over the house as reminders.

We are influenced by whatever fills our minds. The psalmists talked of meditating on God’s instruction (Ps. 1:2), His love (48:9), His works (77:12), and His ways (119:15), basically every aspect of Him we can think of. If you’re not sure what meditating on God looks like, Scripture memorization and inductive Bible study are ways to start. Any way we think about or ponder God and His Word is meditation. And it’s always a better way of spending my time and thoughts than on celebrity gossip.