Meditating today is associated by many with Eastern mysticism and disciplines like Yoga, but there is a very long-standing tradition of Christian Meditation.

A favorite text used over the centuries by godly people to describe the experience of prayerful meditation before the Lord with his Word was:

"My heart was hot within me, and while I was thus musing the fire kindled: and at the last I spake with my tongue, 'LORD let me know mine end...'" [Psalm 39:3]

Why does this particular text seem to describe the felt experience of those who, in what used to be called the lectio divina,  spend time in quiet before the Lord to ponder and pray over what they had heard/read in and memorized from what used to be called the lectio continua [the continuous reading of the Bible and chanting of the Psalter] of the daily routine of  the daily offices/ hours of prayer?

To answer the question requires that we explore what those seriously committed to daily meditation believe they are doing.

First of all, they place themselves in the presence of God, confess their sins and ask for grace and inspiration. Then from memory (perhaps assisted by the reading of a text) they recall some particular Word of the Lord heard and read earlier. Using their powers of imagination, they picture the original scene from which the Word came. At the same time with their reason and intellect they seek to understand it by approaching it from various angles and with differing questions. Then they seek by the truths of the Word of God to raise their affections - their desire, hope, love, and joy - towards God the Father through Jesus Christ. Here they often experience the inner warmth, glow, of the witness of the Holy Spirit with their spirit. That is, the fire kindles as they muse and raise their souls towards God.

And with the fire kindled and the heart warmed, their will is directed aright; and they are prepared to make resolutions and commitments to the Lord and engage in genuine prayer, where they know that they are in touch with God the Father, through Jesus the Lord and by the Holy Spirit.

The underlying belief here is this: the whole soul has been and remains affected by the disease of sin, and this is seen most clearly in the affections/emotions and the will, together with the imagination.

Thus in meditation, the whole soul (memory, intellect, imagination, affections and will) is to be engaged in the presence of God with this Word; further, for there to be the real possibility of engagement with God and his truth, the raising of the affections has to proceed from consideration of, and pondering over, the Word and Truth of God.

The rule is not to begin with the affections since, for most people, the emotions can be as wild horses and not easily controllable! They need to be informed, warmed and guided by the Word of the Lord before being directed to embrace the Lord. "While I was thus musing [considering, reflecting and thinking about God's revealed Word] the fire kindled" and I was alive before God, ready to converse with him!

Only when the whole soul is joined through its spirit, by the Holy Spirit, to the Father through the One Mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ, can there be real and true communion, in which praise, thanksgiving and petitionary and intercessory prayer can be offered.

When the meditation becomes genuine prayer to God and there is spiritual union and communion, then it may be said that meditation has become contemplative prayer; the whole soul is now focused on God and as it were gripped by the knowledge and sense of him. Then there is real spiritual worship and adoration.

This move from consideration to contemplation can occur also in the context of congregational worship.

In this experience the person/soul loses all sense of the importance of self and becomes absorbed with the glory and the beauty of God, for God's sake. And for a while, it may seem as though time has ceased, or that there is no time, only eternity.

So Christian meditation is engagement with the living God in humility and openness, ready to know and feel him and be his faithful servant.

At www.anglicansatprayer.org there are various aids to meditation.

See also www.churchofenglandcayman.com for local commentary and information.