What does meditate on the word of God mean? Meditate means being still; not only that, to be still so you can meditate, and that in itself means to be still in order to be still, so that we can be still.
That sounds contradictory in many situations – we often react without thinking for something that happens regularly. And sometimes something happens that require our immediate reaction, we can’t just pause and “meditate”!
I witnessed something happened today where a major injury was avoided.
The way it happened later made me think why did it not result in this or that way which would be the more natural cause of reaction.
It’s not likely that we can pray or meditate at any given situation because a quick response is needed. The golden rule seems to be that we ought to meditate as often as possible, and doing so will mould our mind, attitudes, and even behaviour to be more Christ-like.
We know many drivers who get very impatient at other drivers and show their frustrations, sometimes we do that too.
When things fall off the edge of my table, sometimes I get irritated because I have to stop what I am doing and pick them up.
In conversations or meetings, we might feel others haven’t quite got some important points that we know, and we react without losing much time to emphasise the points, without giving space for others to explain their point.
- In examples such as those above, find ways to be less reactive
- Develop a habit of taking short moment of break to slow down the thought process that is rushing away and taking you to actions you might prefer not to do
- In situation where there is no thinking time, reflect soon afterwards
- We will never be all perfect in all situations for all people, but others will recognise the increasing desire for being like Christ