Is meditation biblical? With the release of Gina’s new project, Dwell Vol 1, a collection of guided scripture meditations this is an important question. In this episode Gina, Norm and Justin have a conversation about biblical meditation vs other forms of meditation, the benefits of intentionally meditating on God’s word and making space to listen.
An Intro to The Dwell Project
Gina:
Hi, Norm, Justin, and everybody, welcome to season four. Can you believe we’ve got four seasons of the sacred space podcast? Super excited about still being here, excited about season four, but really excited about what we’re launching in addition to this season of the podcast. And that is the Dwell project! Dwell volume one is available now on all your streaming services.
Norm:
What is the Dwell project?
Gina:
Yes. I’m glad you asked that Norm. Dwell is a recording project of guided scripture meditations. And by that, I mean, we created a musical bed and I take you through a scripture and we give space for The Holy Spirit to speak, for you to receive it differently and to really get immersed, to use a Norm word right before we started recording, really get “immersed” in God’s presence, in His voice and in His word.
Being musicians, I was excited to create music really intentionally for this. That the music plays as much a role in the leading, as the voiceover or my narration or whatever you want to call it.
Also, I was really wanting to create something that is very Scripture based. It is the Word that we’re allowing to be exposed to differently, taken deeper, to really hear what the Holy Spirit might be saying.
So the inception of this came from season one of The Sacred Space podcast. I had a vision of having a lot of the episodes being conversations, but then a couple each season being these Dwell episodes. And out of that, I ended up getting a seed grant from the Grove in Orange County to do a recording project.
And so we’ve been working on it and here we are. I really wanted to get together with you guys and have a conversation.
Norm:
It’s great to be here. I have been in worship ministry for a long time! Dwell, in the way that this project is, is something that we would regularly do where we would create a musical bed, and you would just get to minister.
I am speaking for myself personally, that this has been some of the most profound times of hearing God speak to me. The idea of putting that together for people, so that they can have their own times of immersion with the Lord, was super exciting for me to be a part of.
It was a long process because even though we’ve done lots of music projects before, strangely there are some technical aspects of doing this. It isn’t just throwing together some music beds and going for it, to create that required a lot more intentionality, but I’m super excited with how it turned out.
Justin:
Yeah, we fought to keep the music connected to content. I don’t know if you and Gina know this Norm, but one of the first connections I felt with you guys when I met you, because I met Gina on the phone through a job interview process several-several years ago. Then, I met you Norm when I came out to interview for that job in person.
Within 24 hours of meeting both of you in person, we were making music together.
What set you apart from other musicians I had played with Norm, is that you were open to allowing the music to go somewhere and to do something, and to breathe. You were okay with me painting for a minute between pieces of content.
I think that started out pretty quick, with all three of us being pretty open-spirit to this sort of thing, that God can speak in things that don’t just require a black and white on a page of words, but that God can use all of it. So that was actually something that really drew me to you guys in general.
Biblical Meditation vs Eastern religious Meditation
Gina:
Norm, you and I had some conversations when I was creating the journal, and you really were pushing me to teach and explain the difference between Biblical meditation and meditation in the context of what other people might think of it. Justin, I’m really eager to hear your thoughts on this.
Some of the things that as I’ve been thinking through are that, the striking difference for me between Eastern meditation, and when I say Eastern meditation, meditation that’s rooted in Eastern religious practices, is that it tends to be self-focused and it tends to be isolating.
It’s an isolation practice where Biblical meditation is relationship focused and is dependent. So it doesn’t operate in isolation. It operates in relationship and independence, and that dependence obviously is on God.
Eastern meditation is focused inward, and emptying yourself out where Biblical meditation is bringing your mind, your soul, and your spirit, intentionally into God’s presence and to His word and His voice and in submission to, surrender to, and in the receiving of those things.
What are your thoughts on that Justin?
Justin:
If I were to just take a broad stroke and talk about Eastern versus Biblical meditation, probably the safest thing to say in regard to that from my understanding, which is fairly informed, is that Eastern often has to do with self-awareness and self-actualization, so it’s largely ruled by self-definition.
So where you wind up at the end, is a re-organized self, minus the things that are burdening you. It’s the work of your own hands, your own mind, and it operates largely in the box of realization.
Now in a Google world, realization is just a few keystrokes away on anything you want to realize, it’s governed by information. So you can get any information you want about anything you’re searching for.
Realization of the world can only lead to a reorganization of the self.
Revelation comes from outside of our realm into our world, and that’s what we call God’s word, It was revealed to us.
In fact, after humanity fell in Genesis, we read that Adam and Eve chose to go against the laws that God had set in place. There was a separation from God, and there was also a separation from self.
God’s word, does the work of realigning us with God and our purpose and realigning us back with right relationship with self. What we actually believe as Christians, as followers of Jesus, is that something deeper than self-realization and self-revelation, if you will, is out there, and it’s called God’s word.
It puts us back in connection with the one who formed us, and formed us with purpose. So we understand purpose, and so we understand ourselves, if that makes sense.
Gina:
Totally. Well, it goes back to “love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; love your neighbor as yourself;” all of which is relationally driven and relationally necessary.
So when you are talking about coming back into that place of reconnecting, and reorienting with that first relationship that we’re designed for, this then allows us to have healthy relationship with ourselves and each other.
It’s that place of being seen, being known, and being loved. Well, it’s actually not just receiving but also the giving. It’s seeing and being seen, knowing and being known, and loving and being loved.
Justin:
Higher thinking doesn’t actually heal you, It buys you out of your problem, but band-aids get bled through. It’s just the way that it is. You’re going to have to come back for more higher thinking.
Now we’re going to wander, but what we’re promised in God’s revelation is that it brings true restoration. That’s something we can’t do for our own selves.
Ask anybody in our culture, everyone’s starting to say that sacrificial love is the best way to love everybody. I’m like, well, where have we heard about that? So to me you have Biblical meditation versus Eastern thought or meditation, and I’m not trying to bulldoze one or the other, I’m sharing from conviction, not just from the truth, but from experience.
Norm:
It seems to me that, having been Japanese, born and raised in Japan, as the two of you know; my exposure to meditation was listening to people chant for extended periods of time, with the goal that you were just sharing Justin.
I don’t really come from a charismatic background, but from my experience with the Lord, I would characterize Biblical meditation as “soaking or immersing yourself in the truths of God.”
There’s a pastor that we used to have years ago, and one of the quotes that he had continues to resonate with me, he said, “The truest thing about you, is what God says about you.” And if that’s true, then there are huge ramifications of that.
Justin is the worship pastor of New Community Church in Vista, CA
Check the rest of this conversation The Necessity for Stillness in a Chaotic World, Stillness, Delight & Endurance
Check out the Dwell Meditations
