Meditation

Retraining your brain to dig deep

By Carol Emerson Hill (San Jose)

Did you ever noticed that your attention span has shortened? This morning as I was trying to absorb an article about God, I saw myself getting distracted and wanted to ‘click’ to the next brief thought. I’m not alone.

As a career consultant I train my clients to write resumes using stimulating bullets of accomplishments with metrics that capture interesting high points that powerfully demonstrate their skills, knowing that the audience does not want to read lengthy paragraphs anymore. This is because the average attention from a recruiter’s scan is 3-10 seconds. What’s happening to us?

I find myself clicking and scrolling, but not absorbing, constantly moving but not deeply capturing meaning. It didn’t used to be this way. Perhaps it is an element of increasingly crowded information options and time, but to focus is also an element of choice.

An article from TIME HEALTH MAGAZINE online, “You Have A Shorter Attention Span Than A Goldfish” captures our current mindset: “The average attention span for the notoriously ill-focused goldfish is nine seconds, but according to a new study from Microsoft Corp., people now generally lose concentration after eight seconds, highlighting the effects of an increasingly digitalized lifestyle on the brain” (By Kevin McSpadden, May 14, 2015).

Are we being lulled into the “goldfish” trap? Knowing this, what does God’s word say about how to use our minds? God instructs us to meditate in Joshua 1:8 (NLV). He tells us “Study this Book of Instruction continually. Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do.” Also, in Psalm 1:2 (NLV) it says, “But they delight in the law of the LORD, meditating on it day and night.” This sounds like focused time in deep, contemplative thought, which is much longer than nine-seconds.

When we look at the difference between the world’s definition of meditation and God’s, we will see that one is active, and one is inactive. Both Hebrew and Greek meanings of the word indicate activity between thought and speech and heart: to mutter, speak, study, talk, utter, to revolve in the mind or imagine about something you care about. God’s meditation is not about simple focus on an object or mantra, it’s actively seeking to learn and become like God and when it comes to “muttering and speaking” it sounds like we could include another person in a discussion about it.

I don’t know about you, but I must get busy building my mental focus muscle. And from this, I conclude that one of the best ways to do this is meditating and spending deep focused time in God’s word. Here are some activities that will help us:

1.    Pick a topic. Pull out your concordance and write down every scripture on the topic and the different meanings in Hebrew and Greek. Spend some time in consideration of what you’re studying and how that would apply to your life.

2.    Take time to discuss this with your spouse or brethren.

3.    Choose a particularly meaningful scripture and memorize it. This can be hard, but I’m surprised that it can be done!  I recall one long scripture that I had to memorize for a class and it has become one of my foundational supports.

4.    Choose an afternoon to spend time in God’s nature. Contemplate God’s beautiful promises. Talk to Him while you’re doing this, asking Him to deepen your knowledge and faith and hope in Him.

Maybe you have some ideas that you can share with me. I’d love to hear them. Let’s meditate and bring to life the wonderful hope we have!!