Chewing The Cud (Translating Meditation From Christianese Into Plain English)

Hee hee, I LOVE that title!! Love it. (On a side note, I need to write a book and include the sentence, "The grill was a screaming sea of grease.")

Today, at work, while I prepared a vast quantity of pork chops I listened to the sermon from Sunday's service (Making Disciples). And, it was funny and frustrating, bits and pieces of the sermon kept popping out at me. It was like they were highlighted on the inside of my heart. There was one part in particular that I kept rewinding and listening to again and again. I tried very hard to figure out what I was trying to understand or what I was on the verge of discovering, but, whatever it was, it remained shapeless and flighty, just out of my reach.

But the experience got me thinking. Meditation is SO important! It seems kind of boring and mundane, but the process of focusing on one scripture, or one thought from the bible, or one part of a sermon is like exercising. As you look at the scripture from different angles and really lean into thinking about it, the Holy Spirit is right there. It's like, you're doing chin ups, and as you pull up, when you get your chin over the bar, He pops something sweet in your mouth to reward your work.

I was tempted to email my pastor and question him until he gave me the discovery that my spirit was working on. But as I considered it, the image of a chick chipping it's way out of its shell popped into my mind. If someone comes along and helps the chick out, does all the work for it, then the chick will grow up weak. It won't have developed the muscles that it needs. I think meditation is like that. Sometimes, we need to figure out things for ourselves. Not just take whatever has been fed to us, but root around for our own food.

Anyway, check out the sermon. It was GOOD.