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Here is a way to meditate with Scripture that will help you welcome Christ into your life in a fresh way.
1. Choose a Scripture passage before your quiet time. You may use suggestions from a devotional book, from the church year or choose your own.
2. Begin by sitting in a comfortable position. Take a few deep breaths. Imagine breathing in the Spirit and breathing out the busyness and tension of daily life.
3. Thank God for being present with you.
4. As you feel "centred," read the Scripture passage slowly, one phrase at a time. Do not try to "get something out of it"; simply offer it as a prayer. Repeat each phrase as often as it seems to have life. Then pause and listen before moving to the next phrase. If it is a story text, imagine yourself in the narration, using your imaginary senses of smell, touch, hearing, seeing. Pay attention to who you are in the text. How are you responding to what is happening? What do you want to do or say?
5. When you sense that God is touching you through a phrase or word, stay with it as long as you like. Sometimes God will touch you so deeply that you move readily into a prayer of response. If so, let the rest of the text go and follow where the Spirit leads. God is the initiator. We are giving God this time to speak to our hearts, guide us, heal us and bring us into loving knowledge of the Trinity.
6. As your meditation time ends, respond in prayer in whatever way is appropriate to what happened or did not happen. Close the time with praise and thanksgiving.
Be gentle with yourself. A relationship with God is a growing experience. Some days one feels close to God, other days distant. Do not worry about these fluctuating feelings. Christ lives within us. God is always healing, renewing, creating and deepening us whether we feel it or not.
Remember: sometimes the greatest gift of our reflection time is the silence.
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