Meditative Prayer, Jesus The Meditator, and A Guided Meditation
The Disciple-Leader Newsletter #67
Discipleship
“The Lord knew —in this fast-paced world full of distractions and in commotion —that making quality time for Him would be one of the major challenges of our day.”1
L. Todd Budge
Psalms has been labeled the prayer book of the Bible.2 Almost every Psalmic chapter is an actual prayer being offered.3 Psalm 1, however, is not a prayer. It’s an introduction. It is an introduction to the prayer book of the Bible, which, to me, feels like an instruction on the kind of prayers that we should be offering.
1 Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. 2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. 3 And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. 4 The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. 5 Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. 6 For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.
What is the promise of Psalm 1?
Those who delight in the law of the Lord and meditate on it, shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth fruit. His leaf will not wither, but will prosper.
Meditate is an interesting word to use in the introduction to the prayer book of the Bible. Why was meditate the word that was used? What does it mean to meditate? What is meditative prayer?
From the best I can tell, there are two kinds of prayers.4
Calling Prayer. In this type of prayer, we lead the discussion. We set the tone. We pick up the phone and immediately start talking to God. We tell him about our day, we express our gratitude, we seek His blessings, we pray for others. We are calling Him. This certainly is the most common prayer we offer and really the main—if not only—form of prayer we teach in the church.
Answering Prayer. This is meditative prayer. This is prayer that lets Him start the conversation. We listen. We let Him direct our thoughts. We let Him guide our paths. We meditate on Him. This is meditation.
Commenting on this first chapter of Psalms, Tim Keller emphasized that the bringing forth of the fruit is for those who have the law and meditate on it. The promise is not for those who merely have the law. Having the law and not meditating on it is like a tree that merely looks at the water but doesn’t actually draw it up. A tree that isn’t nourished by the water. Meditation is the process by which we draw up the law’s living water.
So what does meditative prayer look like in practice? Interestingly enough, Latter-day Saint prophets are among the most meditative people in the Christian world.
David O. McKay wrote, “I think we pay too little attention to the value of meditation, a principle of devotion. In our worship there are two elements: One is spiritual communion arising from our own meditation; the other, instruction from others, particularly from those who have authority to guide and instruct us. Of the two, the more profitable introspectively is meditation. Meditation is the language of the soul. It is defined as ‘a form of private devotion, or spiritual exercise, consisting in deep, continued reflection on some religious theme.’ Meditation is a form of prayer. . . . It is one of the most secret, most sacred doors through which we pass into the presence of the Lord.”5
Jeffrey R. Holland shared a story about President McKay that sheds light on his actual meditation practice. He said, “For some of (David O. McKay's) prayers, he would go into a darkened room, a private room with the curtains drawn, and he would kneel in the center of the room. Not on a chair and not against a bed. He'd kneel and say nothing. This is not at the end of the prayer, this is before the prayer started. He would say nothing for a matter of minutes until he felt like he was worthy to approach the throne of the Lord.”6
It seems as though President McKay engaged in meditative prayer as a form of preparation for the more common “calling” form of prayer.
Harold B. Lee also was adamant about meditation. He wrote, “I get up early in the morning … five o clock when my mind and spirit are clear and rested. Then I meditate. You can come closer to the Lord than you imagine when you learn to meditate. Let your spirits be taught by the spirit.”7
President Eyring engages in meditative prayer through engaging in visualization: “As I have matured, my experience with prayer has changed. The picture in my mind has become one of a Heavenly Father who is close by, who is bathed in a bright light, and who knows me perfectly.”8
C.S. Lewis dedicated a whole chapter of The Screwtape Letters to how the adversary tries to get us to not engage in meditative prayer. Screwtape writes to Wormwood, “He (God) is cynically indifferent to the dignity of His position … and to human animals on their knees. He pours out self-knowledge in a quite shameless fashion. But even if He (God) defeats your first attempt at misdirection, we have a subtler weapon. The humans do not start from that direct perception of Him which we, unhappily, cannot avoid. They have never known that ghastly luminosity, that stabbing and searing glare which makes the background of permanent pain to our lives. If you look into your patient’s mind when he is praying, you will not find that. If you examine the object to which he is attending, you will find that it is a composite object containing many quite ridiculous ingredients … I have known cases where what the patient called his “God” was actually located — up and to the left at the corner of the bedroom ceiling, or inside his own head ... But whatever the nature of the composite object, you must keep him praying to it — to the thing that he has made, not to the Person who has made him … For if he ever comes to make the distinction, if ever he consciously directs his prayers ‘Not to what I think thou art but to what thou knowest thyself to be’, our situation is, for the moment, desperate.”9
If you haven’t engaged in meditative prayer, start to. If you don’t practice visualizing God while praying to Him, start to. The scriptural promises are real and powerful.
Leadership
“Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.”
Mark 1:65
Jesus, the Perfect Leader10, had a meditative prayer practice. Presidents Lee and McKay weren’t coming up with new ideas. They were following in the footsteps of the Master.
Matthew 14:23 – “After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone.”
Mark 1:35 – “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.”
Luke 5:16 – “But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.”
Luke 6:12 – “One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God.”
Mark 6:46 – “After leaving them, he went up on a mountainside to pray.”
John 6:15 – “Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.”
Meditation and mindfulness are empirically proven methods in the fields of leadership, clinical psychology, and performance psychology. There are real spiritual and psychological benefits that attend these practices. I’ll share some more of those benefits in the Mental Performance section. I am a big fan of certain guided meditations. Below is one of my favorites, specifically to get in a leadership mindset, by meditating on Christ’s teaching to love others as yourself. I hope you’ll take the time to listen and engage.
Mental Performance
“(Phil Jackson’s) first season with the Lakers was when I was 21. And I dived right into meditation. I always knew the game carried a deeper meaning, more than X’s and O’s and strategy. It’s crazy to me that meditation is viewed as hokey. Just look at the people who’ve done phenomenal things. Do they meditate? Absolutely.”11
Kobe Bryant
In this section, I want to just share some of the scientifically proven benefits of having a meditation practice. First, consider these two statements by Kobe Bryant and Steve Jobs.
“I meditate every day. I meditate for 10 to 15 minutes every morning. It sets me up for the rest of the day. It’s like having an anchor. If I don’t do it I feel like I’m constantly chasing the day, as opposed to being controlled and dictating the day.”12 - Kobe Bryant
“You start to see things more clearly and be in the present more. Your mind just slows down, and you see a tremendous expanse in the moment. You see so much more than you could see before.”13 - Steve Jobs
Since there are so many amazing resources for meditation out there, I will just be aggregating some from other sources here that I think will be helpful for you to have all in one spot.
The Science of Meditation (Headspace). Basic idea: “With recent neuroscientific findings, meditation as a practice has been shown to literally rewire brain circuits that boost both mind and body health. These benefits of meditation have surfaced alongside the revelation that the brain can be deeply transformed through experience—a quality known as neuroplasticity … having a regular practice is associated with benefits to social aspects of our health, like boosting our mindfulness, empathy, and resilience. It can also help us regulate our thoughts so that we’re not so quick to judge, diminishing the potentially detrimental effects of stereotypes. In one study it was even suggested that meditation could make us kinder individuals, boosting our levels of compassion.” Put another way, there is scientific evidence that meditation boosts your ability to develop disciple-leader characteristics.
The Mindful Leader. A semi-systematic review of 19 research articles published between 2000 and 2021 on the topics of mindfulness and leadership. Good article to read.
Why Leaders Need Meditation Now More Than Ever. Great HBR article on the subject.
The Many Benefits of Meditation (Headspace).
The mindful are the ones who master the mental. It’s worth trying if you haven’t yet.
Seek Him With All Your Heart. Talk by L. Todd Budge.
Theologian Eugene Peterson taught this in his book Answering God, as referenced in this conversation with John Piper and Tim Keller.
We see this by just the third chapter.
1Lord, how many are my foes!
How many rise up against me!
2 Many are saying of me,
“God will not deliver him.”
3 But you, Lord, are a shield around me,
my glory, the One who lifts my head high.
4 I call out to the Lord,
and he answers me from his holy mountain.
5 I lie down and sleep;
I wake again, because the Lord sustains me.
6 I will not fear though tens of thousands
assail me on every side.
7 Arise, Lord!
Deliver me, my God!
Strike all my enemies on the jaw;
break the teeth of the wicked.
8 From the Lord comes deliverance.
May your blessing be on your people.
Psalm 3 (NIV)
These ideas come from Tim Keller’s outstanding 2002 sermon entitled Meditation.
David O. McKay, “Consciousness of God: Supreme Goal of Life,” Improvement Era, June 1967, 80.
The Screwtape Letters. C.S. Lewis.
Jesus, The Perfect Leader. Talk by Spencer W. Kimball.
For Arianna Huffington and Kobe Bryant: First, Success. Then Sleep. Article by Philip Galanes in The New York Times.
How Steve Jobs Trained His Own Brain. Article by Geoffrey James for Inc.
Arthur Brooks in The Atlantic.
One final nugget as a gift for you if you’ve gotten this far. James Clear wrote about his experience with meditation. He said, “Some Thoughts on Meditation from an Amateur... Meditation is one habit I've struggled for years to build. And one key reason is because I held a common misconception: I always believed meditation was supposed to be relaxing. This is a broken way to think about the process. My mental image of someone who was ‘good at meditation’ was someone who was relaxed, calm, present, focused. Whenever I tried to meditate, I assumed I should feel relaxed, calm, present, focused. But these are simply the results of meditation, not the process of meditating. When I would meditate, I would begin by focusing on my breath, but two seconds later my mind would wander to the leaves rustling or the car outside or my guilt about some stupid thing I said. I was always distracted and so I figured I wasn't ‘doing it right.’ Now I'm beginning to realize that the mind wandering is actually an essential part of the process of meditating. To explain why, consider the process of lifting weights. When you train hard in the gym, each repetition is effortful. This is how it's supposed to be. The challenge of lifting the weight is what makes the muscle grow. In time, your body adapts to the challenge placed upon it. Meditation also consists of effortful repetitions. After each interruption, you pull your focus back to your breath—the mental equivalent of putting in another rep in the gym. These effortful mental reps are what build the capacity to be relaxed, calm, present, focused. In this way, "getting distracted" is actually necessary for practicing meditation. Resistance is required to build strength. Distraction is required to build focus.”
This is how meditative prayer works. We shouldn’t be fooled into believing it comes naturally or easy. It does not. It’s a form of hard work. Actually, meditative prayer might be the best way for us to grow into Russell M. Nelson’s teaching: “There is nothing easy or automatic about becoming such powerful disciples. Our focus must be riveted on the Savior and His gospel. It is mentally rigorous to strive to look unto Him in every thought. But when we do, our doubts and fears flee.”