WHY MEDITATION IS THE MENTAL HEALTH MEDICATION YOU'VE BEEN LOOKING FOR

In Deuteronomy 17 God institutes a law that the future King of Israel is to make a hand-written copy of the entirety of the Law. In doing so, he would be accountable for knowing and following Yahweh and leading the nation in its devotion to His precepts. By writing out every single phrase, word, and letter the King would be compelled to ruminate on the commands of God. Can you imagine if we required the same thing of each of our leaders today? What if our president had to write out a copy of the entire constitution before taking office, pastors had to write their own personal copy of the Bible before assuming the pulpit, and athletes had to write out their own copy of the rulebook before getting drafted to a team? It's quite possible we would have a different caliber of societal leaders!

THE WORD

Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. -Psalm 1:1-2

You may have had some red flags rise up in your mind when you read the title of this blog. I don't blame you. The practice of meditation seems to have been hijacked by New Age spiritualists and hippies. When you hear the word "meditation" it's likely that yoga, Buddhism, or monks in the Himalayan mountains first come to mind. However, meditation is a spiritual discipline that the scriptures call us to.

When I talk about meditation, I'm not talking about “centering your chakra” or opening your third eye. Let's be honest, a lot of us can hardly afford the prescriptions for the two we have! No, the Word calls for us to meditate on… you guessed it, the Word!

Far-eastern meditation and Biblical meditation couldn't be more different. Eastern meditation espouses the practice of emptying your mind, whereas Biblical mediation is about filling the mind with God's promises found in scripture.

David says in Psalm 1 that the key to being blessed is meditating on God’s Word. Notice he doesn't say to READ God’s word, to HEAR or LISTEN to God’s word, or even to MEMORIZE God’s word – but rather to MEDITATE on it.

When you and I refer to God’s Word, we’re referring to the whole Bible: the Pentateuch, prophets, and psalms of the Old Testament as well as the Gospels and epistles of the New Testament, as well as Jesus Himself! We reference quite a bit by simply saying "the Word." But keep in mind, David didn’t have almost any of that. He was writing the Psalms. He lived long before the gospels of the new covenant and he had never even heard the word "epistle" in his day. So when David refers to meditating on and delighting in the law of the Lord, he was referring to a much smaller collection of writings, which was largely made up of Leviticus!

When was the last time you sent someone a verse from Leviticus to encourage them? I doubt you posted something from Leviticus on facebook this morning or have one in your instagram bio. Yet David was fed by the Old Testament law, not because it was so inspiring or catchy, not because it made him feel good, but simply because it came from God... and that made it true.

MEDICATING THE MIND

I'm in no way against medication and I affirm the existence of mental illness. This is not my way of saying that if you struggle with extreme depression then "just pray about it." Mental health is an extremely nuanced topic too cumbersome to tackle in a blog.

But there's too much in the scripture about war being waged in our minds to not recognize that there is a spiritual component to our mental woes. How is it that meditation on the Word can be medication for the mind? Because toxic thoughts are rooted in lies and deception.

You know the thoughts I'm talking about… you've probably already had at least ten of them on the way to work this morning. ”I hate the way I look. I’m a horrible teacher, agent, friend, son, etc. No one cares about me. Why can’t my husband/wife be better? My kids are so annoying. I wish I had a different life.” You know, those kinds of toxic thoughts.

"Toxic" refers to poisonous and hazardous material which causes sickness and leads to death. Toxic thoughts are poisonous thoughts. When poison enters your body it begins shutting down your organs. Its intent is to disrupt the function of our nervous, respiratory, and other bodily systems. Poisonous thoughts seek to do the same. They inhibit our ability to think clearly and correctly. Toxic thoughts don't just exist in a vacuum, they turn into toxic beliefs, toxic habits, and toxic practices. They spread like poison until they slowly drain the life out of your marriage, your family, and your job.

Self-afflicting thoughts. Lustful thoughts. Envious thoughts. Prideful thoughts.

We all deal with them. They bombard us day and night. It's the battle we are most overwhelmed by and least equipped for. The mind is a battlefield.

MY STORY (THE SHORT VERSION)

Just a quick snapshot of my testimony: despite growing up in a great home and in church I found myself in a very dark state of mind around the age of 15. After wrestling with an addiction to pornography and enduring a few traumatic life events I found myself struggling with depression daily and random episodes of crippling anxiety. I was becoming convinced that God was not real, I didn’t know who I was, and I felt as though I had lost all hope and all joy.

Then one day I opened the Bible. For the first time in my life, I opened it unwarranted by someone else. Never had I turned to the Bible outside of Church, family devotions, or some gathering. I was desperate to find something that could speak to me and there it was. It wasn't a particularly special verse. I certainly hadn't heard a sermon on it and it wasn't one of those verses you see everywhere, but for some reason, it spoke deeply to my heart.

Psalm 37:23-24

"The Lord makes firm the steps of the one who delights in Him; though he may stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with His hand."

There was something about knowing God had spoken this in His Word, which meant I could stake my life on this being true. If I will trust Him, even in my stumbling I. WILL. NOT. FALL.

So, I wrote it on a notecard and carried it with me. Then I wrote it on a post-it note and put it on my bedroom dresser. I also wrote it on the back of my hand for several days. As I was sitting in school, I would write it over and over in my notebook. When I was alone, I said it out loud over and over. I did whatever I had to in order to get it in my head and in my heart.

I didn't memorize it for a Sunday school challenge. I wasn't assigned memory verses for school. I just needed to survive and I was desperate for the truth. Over time, that verse led to another and another. To this day, I have a little basket of hundreds of cards with verses on them that I have shuffled through during prayer times for somewhere around 18 years now.

NEURAL PATHWAYS

You've likely heard or read about how neural pathways in the brain work. If you haven't, take some time to look into it because I'm the last person who has any business informing you on neuroscience! Essentially, whenever we think a thought or perform an action, it creates a pathway in our brains. The more we think the thought, the wider the path becomes. Similar to how a trail in a forest becomes more defined with the increase of foot traffic.

The wider and more defined a neural pathway becomes, the more our brain is conditioned to think the same things over and over again, no matter how toxic or harmful those thoughts may be. Over time foot trails become roads and roads become eight-lane highways.

This is why Romans 12 tells us that the key to life transformation is the renewing of our minds. I didn’t know it at the time but as I was beginning to meditate on scripture, I was being transformed by the renewing of my mind. I was slowly dismantling the interstate that had been formed by my thoughts and beginning to form a new trail off the beaten path.

See, the way you deal with toxic thoughts is to make your mind, MIND. The mind is a horrible master, but a wonderful servant. When you make your mind submit to the truth of God’s word, it goes to work for you.

THE FIRST PSALM

The first Psalm holds a special key to letting the rest of the Psalms have power in our lives. Regardless of whether or not David intentionally designated this one to be read before all the others, it doesn't matter. God saw fit to position this Psalm as the first one.

Notice how it begins: "Blessed is the one who does not WALK in step with the wicked, or STAND in the way that sinners take, or SIT in the company of mockers..."

There is a clear regression in posture here: WALK, STAND, SIT. Lies, deception, and sin always cause regression in our lives. They are constricting and demobilizing. The aim of a lie is always to take you captive so that you go from movement to stagnant. Once you start walking in step with wicked ways and toxic thoughts, you’ll find yourself becoming stationary (standing) with sinners which leads to sitting with the mockers. The mockers we deal with most often are the toxic thoughts that bombard us and mock the truth.

David goes on to say, "But blessed is the one who delights in the law of the Lord and who meditates on His law day and night.”

The root of meditate is MEDI, which means MIDDLE. We get a lot of words from this root: Medium (middle-sized), Median (middle number), Mediterranean Sea (middle of two continents). In other words, to meditate means to put yourself in the MIDDLE of something; to be surrounded by it and to look at it from every angle. 

Jill puts scriptures around our house. She hangs them everywhere. We've even had them in the fridge at times (ok, I get it, just tell me I’m eating too much)! I'm thankful for a wife who knows the power of being surrounded by God's Word.

Meditating on the Word means sitting in it. Not rushing through it to check off your daily encounter, not just cracking it open during the Sunday sermon, but actually sitting in the power of the infallible, inerrant, inspired Word of God.

Once you learn to sit in the Word, you begin to STAND on the Word. You take your stand against lies and deceptions that contradict what you know by way of His Spirit. And once you learn how to stand on the word you begin to WALK out the Word!!

Are you seeing this? Sit IN the Word. Stand ON the Word. Walk OUT the Word. Lies cause us to REGRESS, but the truth causes us to PROGRESS.

CONCLUSION

Can I be honest with you? I still have seasons and episodes of intense and overwhelming anxiety. I also deal with the onslaught of the same toxic thoughts that I'm sure many of you do on a daily basis as well. Having the Word at my disposal doesn't mean no longer having trials in my life. It just means I am much better equipped to navigate them. I have the truth for every lie, beauty for every ash, joy in every season of mourning, praise for every bout of heaviness.

Faith isn't the absence of suffering, it's knowing the presence of God in the midst of suffering. I want to state this clearly, I am in no way against medications and treatments for mental health, but I believe scripture and knowing God's Word should never be overlooked as one of them. Meditation on scripture is medication for the mind.

I want to encourage you to evaluate your approach to the Bible. What kinds of rhythms can you put in place that will enable you to not just read scripture but to ruminate on it and therefore begin to renew your mind? This is more important than the average Christian thinks. Perhaps that's the first thought we have to start changing!