For forty days before her promotion interview, Ayodele followed a programme she had been given at a weekend prayer conference. Every morning on the BRT bus from Ikorodu to Victoria Island, she recited Psalm 23 seven times. Then she declared, “I am the head and not the tail,” seventy times, counting on her fingers. In the evening she did the same on the way home. A friend from the conference had told her that the number mattered. “If you break the count, you have to start again from day one.”
She was faithful to it. She did not miss a single day. She sometimes lost count in the middle of the bus ride, when a notification lit up her phone or the conductor shouted for fares, so she would go back and recite the whole set again to be safe. By the end, she could say Psalm 23 so quickly that it took her less than a minute.
The interview went badly. She was nervous, she stumbled over a question she had prepared for, and another supervisor was given the role. That evening on the bus, she did not recite anything. She sat with her forehead against the window and felt, she told me later, as though she had paid for something and God had refused to deliver it.
A few days afterwards, she found herself sitting in the guard post at the back of her office building during lunch, because it was the only place with shade. Mr Ita, the elderly security supervisor, was there with his rice and a small black Bible. He had worked on the railway in Calabar for thirty years before he retired and took this job. Tucked into the cover of his Bible was a small white card with five words written on it in blue ink: The LORD is my shepherd.
“Is that your verse for today?” she asked.
“For this week,” he said. “I started on Monday.”
It was Thursday. Ayodele laughed. “Five words in four days?”
PunchlineMr Ita smiled and folded the card back into his Bible. “My daughter, I have not finished them yet.”
What the Bible means by meditation
The word meditation means different things to different people. For some it suggests sitting cross-legged and emptying the mind. For others it means the kind of thing Ayodele was doing: repeating words in a set pattern until something happens. Biblical meditation is neither of these.
The first time the Bible commands meditation, it comes to a soldier on the edge of a war. Moses had died. Joshua now had to lead an entire nation across the Jordan into a land full of fortified cities. And God said to him:
Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.
“This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth.” That is interesting. We usually think of meditation as something silent and internal, but God connects it with the mouth. The Hebrew word translated meditate here carries the sense of murmuring, speaking quietly under the breath. In the ancient world, people rarely read silently. To meditate on the law was to speak it to yourself, slowly, again and again, turning it over aloud.
So far, that might sound like Ayodele on the bus. But look at what the meditation is for. “That thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein.” Meditation leads to doing. Joshua was to fill his mind and mouth with God’s instruction so that, when he stood at the walls of Jericho or faced a difficult decision about Ai, the word would already be shaping his response. The meditation is not a ritual performed before the battle to guarantee victory. It is the way a leader’s mind is formed, so that in every situation he knows what God has said and is ready to obey it.
Then comes the promise: “for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.” The word behind good success is closely connected with acting wisely. The prosperity God promises here is real, and we should not shrink from it. But it comes through a life made wise by His word. It is the fruit of a mind that has been shaped by meditation and a will that has learned to obey.
And notice where the passage ends: “for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.” The final ground of Joshua’s confidence is not his technique, his consistency or even his meditation. It is the presence of God. Meditation keeps that presence in view.
Delight before discipline
The book of Psalms opens with a portrait of the person whose life is shaped by meditation:
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. But his delight is in the law of the LORD ; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. 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.
The same Hebrew word for meditate appears in verse 2. But before the psalm mentions meditation, it mentions delight: “But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.” The order matters. This man does not meditate because he has been told to, or because he hopes to earn something. He meditates because he loves what God has said. People do not need to be forced to think about what they love. A young man in love does not need a programme to remind him to think about his fiancée.
That does not mean meditation will always feel easy. Delight can be cultivated, and there will be mornings when the heart is dull. But the psalmist is describing the heart of the practice. Meditation is not a heavy duty to be endured. It is returning, again and again, to the words of someone we love.
“Day and night” does not mean that this man does nothing else. He works, eats, sleeps and raises a family like anyone else. But God’s instruction has become woven into all of it. It comes back to him in the morning, in the middle of the afternoon and when he lies awake at night. His mind has a home it keeps returning to.
Then the picture: “like a tree planted by the rivers of water.” The word translated planted is often used of something transplanted, set deliberately in a chosen place. The tree did not grow wild by accident. Someone placed it there. And the rivers of water are better understood as channels or streams, the kind of irrigation channels a farmer cuts to bring water to his trees. This is a cultivated tree in a cared-for orchard. God is the gardener. He has planted His people by the water. Meditation is the way our roots go down to drink.
And notice: it “bringeth forth his fruit in his season.” Not every week. Not on demand. In its season. Meditation does not produce instant results. A mango tree does not bear fruit the morning after it rains. The fruit comes when the time is right, out of roots that have been drinking for a long time. That alone should free us from the idea that meditation is a way to force a quick outcome.
NuggetMeditation is not a technique for getting results from God. It is the slow, repeated drinking of a tree that God Himself has planted by the water.
When words become a machine
This is where we need to be careful. There is a kind of repetition that has nothing to do with biblical meditation, and Scripture warns against it.
Jesus said, “But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking” (Matthew 6:7). The problem He names is a belief: they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. The pagans believed that the right words, said often enough, would compel the gods to act. Words became a machine. Put in the correct input, and the result must come out.
God also spoke through Isaiah about a deeper problem:
Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men.
These people were saying all the right things. Their lips were full of worship. But their hearts were far away. Their religious words had become something learned by rote, “taught by the precept of men,” detached from any real encounter with God.
The book of Acts gives a vivid example of what happens when holy words are used as a formula. In Ephesus, seven sons of a Jewish priest named Sceva tried to cast out evil spirits by saying, “We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth” (Acts 19:13). They had heard the name of Jesus used powerfully by Paul, so they borrowed it, the way someone borrows a password. The evil spirit answered, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?” (Acts 19:15), and the man attacked them. The name of Jesus is truly powerful. But they did not know Him. They were using His name as a technique.
That was what had happened to Ayodele, though she did not see it. Her recitation had become a machine. The goal was to complete the count, not to hear what the psalm said. If she lost her place, she started again, because she feared the machine would not work if she missed a step. She could say Psalm 23 in under a minute, and she had never once stopped to ask what it meant that the Lord was her shepherd.
Repetition itself is not the problem. Psalm 136 repeats “for his mercy endureth for ever” twenty-six times. Jesus prayed the same words three times in Gethsemane (Matthew 26:44). Mr Ita repeated five words for a whole week. The difference lies in what the repetition is doing. In biblical meditation, repetition is a way of attending more closely, the way you might read a letter from someone you love several times to take in every phrase. In mechanical recitation, repetition is a way of paying, as though the volume of words could purchase an answer.
Pondering what God has said and done
Luke gives us a lovely portrait of meditation in the life of Mary, the mother of Jesus. On the night of His birth, shepherds arrived at the stable with an extraordinary report about angels and a message from heaven:
And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. And when they had seen it , they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.
Everyone who heard the shepherds “wondered.” Wonder is a good thing, but wonder can fade by the next morning. Mary did something more. “But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.” The word kept means she preserved them, guarded them carefully. And pondered translates a word that means to throw together, to compare, to put things side by side. Mary was placing the shepherds’ words next to what Gabriel had told her nine months earlier, next to what Elisabeth had said, next to the prophecies she knew. She was turning them over, asking what they meant and how they fitted.
Twelve years later, after the episode in the temple, Luke says again that “his mother kept all these sayings in her heart” (Luke 2:51). Mary had not understood everything. Luke says plainly that Joseph and Mary “understood not the saying which he spake unto them” (Luke 2:50). Meditation did not give her instant answers. It gave her a way of holding God’s words faithfully, even when she did not yet understand them, until their meaning unfolded.
That is a model for us. Meditation is not only for verses we understand. It is especially for the words we cannot yet fully grasp, and for the things God has done in our lives that we cannot yet explain. We keep them. We put them side by side. We bring them back to God and ask Him to show us what they mean.
What we rehearse when we are hurt
There is a kind of meditation every one of us practises without being taught. It happens after someone insults us. We replay the conversation in the shower, in traffic, in bed at night. We rehearse what we should have said. We imagine what we will say next time. We turn the offence over and over until it has grown larger than it was. That is meditation too. It is simply meditation on the wrong thing.
Paul knew this. His letter to the Philippians was written to a church he loved, but it was a church with tension in it. In chapter 4 he names two women, Euodias and Syntyche, and begs them “that they be of the same mind in the Lord” (Philippians 4:2). He goes on to address anxiety, telling them to bring everything to God in prayer. And then he gives them a new focus for their minds: “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things” (Philippians 4:8).
Read in its setting, that verse is not a piece of general advice about positive thinking. It is pastoral counsel to people who had been rehearsing their grievances and their fears. Paul is saying: your minds will dwell on something. Choose what. Instead of turning over the sister who offended you, turn over what is true. Instead of rehearsing the worst outcome, rehearse what is lovely and of good report. And the first thing that is true, honest, just, pure and lovely is God Himself and what He has done in Christ.
Then Paul adds, “Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you” (Philippians 4:9). Again, meditation leads to doing. Thinking on what is true leads to living truthfully. And the promise goes beyond calmer thoughts to the presence of “the God of peace.” Paul has already promised that “the peace of God” will guard their hearts (Philippians 4:7). Now he promises the God of peace Himself.
If you find that you have been meditating on an offence, the answer is not to try to stop thinking. The mind abhors a vacuum. The answer is to give it something better to return to.
How to meditate on Scripture
So what does biblical meditation look like in practice? Mr Ita taught Ayodele a simple pattern, and it fits what Scripture describes.
Choose a short passage. A single verse, or even part of a verse, is enough. Psalm 23:1, Isaiah 26:3 or Romans 8:1 are good places to begin. It is better to meditate on a few words deeply than to skim a chapter.
Read it slowly, aloud if you can. Remember Joshua: the word was to be in his mouth. Read it several times, putting the emphasis on a different word each time. The LORD is my shepherd. The LORD is my shepherd. The LORD is my shepherd. You will be surprised what emerges. Mr Ita told Ayodele that on Monday he had stayed with The LORD, the covenant name of the God who keeps His promises. On Tuesday he had stayed with is: not was, not will be, but is, today, at this guard post. On Wednesday he had stayed with my. “He is not only the shepherd of pastors and bishops,” he said. “He is the shepherd of an old security man.”
Ask questions of the passage. What does this show me about God? About Christ? About myself? What does it promise? What does it ask of me? How does it fit with the verses around it?
Turn it into prayer. The psalmist said, “I will meditate in thy precepts, and have respect unto thy ways” (Psalm 119:15). Meditation naturally becomes conversation. Thank God for what the passage reveals. Confess what it exposes. Ask Him to make it true in your life.
Carry it with you. Write it on a card, as Mr Ita did. Put it on your phone’s lock screen. Return to it in traffic, in the queue at the bank, before you sleep. The psalmist describes meditation in the night:
My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips: When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches. Because thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice. My soul followeth hard after thee: thy right hand upholdeth me.
“When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches.” Notice that the psalmist is meditating on God Himself, not only on words about Him. Meditation on Scripture is always meditation on the Person whose word it is. And it leads to rest: “my soul followeth hard after thee: thy right hand upholdeth me.”
Finally, respond. Ask, What is one thing I can do today because of what I have meditated on? Joshua meditated so that he could “observe to do.” The fruit of meditation is a changed life.
When meditation is hard
Not every attempt at meditation will feel like Mr Ita at his guard post. Some mornings your mind will wander within seconds. You will be thinking about school fees, the generator that needs servicing or the meeting you are dreading. That is normal. When you notice your thoughts have drifted, do not condemn yourself. Simply return to the verse. The returning is itself part of the practice. Every time you bring your attention back, you are training it, the way a farmer patiently brings a straying goat back to the path.
Some seasons make sustained quiet almost impossible. A mother with a new baby, a man working two jobs, a student in a crowded hostel, may have very few still moments. Meditation can adapt to the season. One phrase, carried through the day and returned to in small gaps, is still meditation. The psalmist meditated “in the night watches,” which suggests he did it when sleep would not come, in whatever space he had.
Grief and depression can also make it hard to hold any thought for long. If that is where you are, be gentle with yourself. Choose very short words, perhaps a single line of a psalm, and let others pray with you. If the heaviness persists, speak to your pastor and to a doctor. Seeking help is no failure of faith, and God’s word will still be there to return to when your mind has more room.
Confession that grows from meditation
Some believers, hearing all this, may wonder whether we are dismissing faith-filled speech altogether. We are not. Scripture teaches that what we say matters. Paul writes, “The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach” (Romans 10:8). He also quotes the psalmist and applies it to himself: “I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak” (2 Corinthians 4:13).
Notice the order in both verses. The word is in the heart, and then in the mouth. Belief comes first, and speech flows from it. That is exactly what meditation produces. When you have turned God’s word over and over until it has taken root in your heart, you will speak it with conviction, and your words will carry real faith.
So go ahead and declare that you are the head and not the tail. Deuteronomy 28:13 says so, and in Christ every promise of God is “yea, and in him Amen” (2 Corinthians 1:20). But speak it as someone who has meditated on what it means, who knows the covenant it belongs to and who trusts the faithful God who made the promise. Say it because you believe it, not because you are trying to complete a count. Confession that flows from meditation is the voice of faith. Recitation that tries to compel God is something else, and it will leave you disappointed and confused, as it left Ayodele.
Ayodele went back to the guard post the following week, and the week after that. Mr Ita gave her a card of her own. She chose Joshua 1:9: Be strong and of a good courage. She carried it on the bus for a week. She stopped counting. Some mornings she only read it twice and then sat looking out of the window, turning over one word. On Wednesday it was commanded: “Have not I commanded thee?” She realised that courage was something God asked of her, not a mood she had to wait for. On Thursday it was whithersoever. The Lord would be with her on the bus, in the office and in the interview room.
Six months later another position came up, and she applied. On the morning of the interview she did not recite anything seventy times. She read Joshua 1:7-9 slowly at her desk, prayed, and walked in. She told me she was nervous, but steady in a way she had never been before. She answered honestly, including one question where she said, “I do not know, but this is how I would find out.”
When she came out, she went straight to the guard post. Mr Ita looked up from his rice. “How did it go?”
Punchline“I do not know yet,” she said. “But I know who went in with me.”
He nodded slowly, as though she had finally finished five words.
Teaching Companion
For Reflection
- What does your mind most naturally return to when it is not occupied: God’s word, your worries or an old offence?
- Have you ever treated a verse or a prayer like a formula, expecting the right words said often enough to guarantee a result?
- Which passage of Scripture would you choose to carry with you for a whole week, and why?
- Mary kept and pondered things she did not yet understand. What word or event in your life might God be asking you to hold patiently before Him?
- How might your confession of faith change if it grew out of meditation rather than recitation?
This Week
Choose one short verse this week, such as Psalm 23:1, Joshua 1:9 or Isaiah 26:3. Write it on a card or set it as your phone’s lock screen. Each morning, read it slowly aloud three times, emphasising a different word each time, and stay with one word or phrase for the day. Return to it at lunchtime and before you sleep. Each evening, write one sentence about what you saw and one about how it affected what you did. Do not move to a new verse until you feel you have truly heard this one.
A Prayer
Father, thank You for planting me by the rivers of water and for giving me Your word to drink from. Forgive me for the times I have treated Your word like a formula and tried to use it to force a result. Give me delight in Your instruction, so that I return to it day and night because I love You. Like Mary, teach me to keep Your words and ponder them, even when I do not yet understand. Turn my mind from rehearsing offences and fears to thinking on what is true and lovely. Let Your word fill my heart, so that when I speak, I speak in faith. And let my meditation become obedience. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Truth received brings freedom. Truth believed establishes the heart.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. · Illustrations using first names only are composites unless stated otherwise.