Slow Your Life Down

I will meditate on Your precepts,
And contemplate Your ways.
(Psalm 119:15 NKJV)

You will only survive difficult times and emerge better from them if you heed the psalmist’s warning that your power and purpose, your strength and energy, your vision and passion are only as strong as who you meditate on and what you contemplate.

The strength of your person, the focus of your vision, the understanding of your call, and the proper interpretation of all your experiences are either strengthened or weakened by the degree of internal surrender you offer to God. I’m talking about the inside labor you put into your spiritual development and maturation.

So the question is this: what is the condition of your inner life?

I don't want to know how in shape you are. I don't want to know how your bank account is doing. I don't want to know how secure your job is. I don't want to know how stable your relationships are. What I want to know is, what’s the condition of your inside reality?

The invitation God is extending to you right now is to slow your life down. Learn to value the prayer room as much as you crave the public stage. Turn your focus to the inside, where listening becomes more important than speaking. Slow your life down so you can value precepts more than punchlines, and so God can help you extract the value out of your lived experiences.

The psalmist teaches us that you must focus on the inside so you can stop being defined by what you battle and instead be defined by what you meditate on. You’ll notice in Psalm 119 that the psalmist’s focus doesn’t dwell on his enemies, on threats from foreign adversaries, or on the peril that lingers ever so close. None of that is mentioned. Instead, we only hear about what the psalmist is meditating over: the precepts and the ways of the Lord. Because the Word of God is what the psalmist meditates on, the battles are not even worth talking about.

If you meditate on God’s Word, your battles become nothing more than interim engagements in route to the fulfillment of God's purposes.

Slow your life down, turn your focus inward, and meditate on God’s Word today.