Take a Thinkabout

Historically, male aborigines have, at about age 18, left the environment, the busy environment, they live in. And they've gone off to re-walk the tribal and the ancient leaders' paths and to re-enact the great deeds that were done in their culture by their leaders. It's all to walk about. And that ancient tradition cleared a person's head and made them think about who they were and what it meant to be an aborigine and what it meant to have the tribal customs and what the legendary people not only did, but they would try to re-enact them personally. And after a time, they would come back to their culture, a person who had more definition of what they were trying to accomplish and what their purpose in life was. Now, in modern times, it refers to an employee in Australia who suddenly disappears from work and reappears a few days later, surprisingly, out of nowhere. So, customs change over time, at least references do. But a walkabout is time off to contemplate.

It's a great name and a great term, in a way. It's time to get away, to walk, to ponder, to think, to have space, and to have time. And the purpose of the sermon today is encourage you to periodically take time for a thinkabout, your own little walkabout, as it were, your own escape from the busyness of life, even for a few minutes or maybe a greater amount of time, to a place or to a mental state where you can think about who you are, about the calling that God has given you, about what He wants you to be, about where you're going and how you're doing in that process. Atop the noisy background of life, let me ask you some deep questions. What is your purpose for living? How does your purpose for living relate to Mr. Dowd's sermon last year? You've been able to really put his sermon into practice, think about it for a second, and what is your purpose for living? What is the sermon at? Today is the day when we will regulate this coming week. How did you lie in your life this week? You see, my point is that amid the busyness of life, it can be very hard to really be able to concentrate on the important things that God has given us to do. The noise of life is so full, you can hardly think sometimes. With all that's going on, the busyness, let alone the news and the issues and the radio and the entertainment and the people talking to you and all the things that you have to do, it's hardly possible to analyze, to plan, to set goals, to enjoy life. There's hardly any time left for that. Today I want to talk about think about. Meditation is the word that the Bible would use, but it really is a think about. It's a mental walk about. The Greek Hebrew words may be translated think in an English Bible or meditate in another. They're also translated as ponder, consider, imagine. It's the use of the mind. Spiritual meditation is very much unlike what other forms of meditation are, particularly in the Eastern cultures. There are phenomenons called meditation, but they are based more on humanism. They're about me, advancing myself, my wants, my needs. They're about faulty psychology and new age concepts, mind over matter, things that take one away from loving and serving and giving and enriching the lives of others as friends and as co-workers in this life and gets it onto oneself of how I can be a special edger, advance myself or have something for me. The Bible meditation is never portrayed as some ritual. It's not even a religious thing to do. There's no holy day or service for meditating. There's no command in the Bible that says, thou shalt meditate. There are a lot of examples of what to meditate about and people who meditate it, but meditation is using your mind. If we go back to that audio example of the clutter of life and from the time we get up in the morning to the time we go to sleep at night, if we are just filled with the clutter of life, we won't have that time to think, to contemplate, to analyze, to plan. What do you think is the most common form of meditation? Everybody meditates. What do you think the most commonly meditated thing is? Meditated upon thing is? A version of meditation? It's probably worry. Now there's a form of meditation. People sit around and worry. They'll think about where they are, where they've been, where the economy's going, where it's going to go for them. They're getting older. They'll think about their health. They'll think about all the problems that could happen. They'll worry and stew over finances. There's some high energy meditation going on there. But is it constructive? Is it helpful?

You know, thinking about all that could go wrong is very negative, but there's something a lot worse than that about it, besides it being negative. Many thoughts are destructive.

They dwell on fears or resentments. You get out of sorts with somebody. Jealousy, lust, pride, and the like. What is all that? Worry, jealousy, and envy? It's all about you, isn't it? It's all about talking about yourself and worrying about yourself. Somebody might have said something, oh no, I better correct that. Oh no, I better worry, worry, worry. I heard on the news that the economy is bad and it's getting worse. Worry, worry, worry. Somebody lost their job. Oh no, I could lose mine. Worry, worry, worry. Instead of worrying about these things, we should be pursuing Christianity, pursuing loving one another, befriending one another, helping one another. That should be our goal. That should be our thought process. How can we do it better based on the current challenges? Let's see, I have less money than I did today. I might lose my job tomorrow. How will I help others under those circumstances? Good way of thinking. Let's go to Matthew 6 and verse 25. Here in Matthew 6, Jesus Christ gave us an outline of prayer and you will find nothing in it about you. There's nothing in the model prayer outline, which we're not going to read, by the way, about you. Nothing. You might say, well, read it sometime. The closest it gets to you and it being about you is we and us. But mostly, it's not even about we and us.

It's about other things. Drop it on down. If we go to verse 25 of Matthew 6, I say to you, don't worry about you. So one thing we shouldn't be meditating about is that we are meditating on is our self, your life, what you'll eat, what you will drink, about your body, what you will put on. But these are the first things that humans get preoccupied about and concerned about. And if all our thinking is about our self, what are we building? We're building treasure on earth. We're putting our treasure into things that are decaying, that have no long purpose or thought or value. Ultimately, read the book of Ecclesiastes.

It's all about things that are useless. Uselessness of uselessness. Worthlessness of worthlessness.

Thus saith the preacher. That's how it begins and that's how it ends. It's all about the worthless useless things that we can preoccupy ourselves with. But Jesus here is saying, don't worry about those things. Verse 27, which of you worrying can add one cubit to his stature? So why do you worry about clothing? In verse 31, don't worry saying, what shall we eat or what shall we drink or what shall we wear? Does it mean, well, I don't have to go shopping anymore. My clothes will never wear out and there will always be food in the fridge. No, you need to be responsible. But going on, he says, for after all these things the Gentiles seek. That's the focus. Those who are not godly, they're self-consumed, they're in this life for themselves. They seek those things. For your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things, but you seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added to you. There are two inspiring things that have happened this week that I've heard about to individuals who have been caught in this economic crunch. You hit the bottom, the jail door closes, there's no way out, you're in the dungeon, you're locked in and that's it. And then one day, suddenly, the gates fall open, the sun is shining, and everything's okay. And you think, wow, how could that happen? Well, I know both of these families were not pursuing and going full hog, but rather they were doing the best they could and trusting God. And guess what? Verse 33, you seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you. Just miracles can happen out of nowhere for those who are trying to obey God and be righteous in the sense of loving others. Therefore, don't worry about tomorrow. For tomorrow, we'll worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. So worry is not something to meditate on. Sure, we should be responsive to our needs and our responsibilities. We should fulfill them. But when it comes right down to what we should contemplate, what we should be thinking about, it's always godliness in the sense, let me define it, loving God with all your heart, soul, and mind, loving your neighbor as much as yourself. If we're focused on that, we have a loving Father who's there for the rest. Does that mean He's not going to let you get sick? Does He mean that you're not going to have any problems in life? No. All things are going to work together, though, for the good of those who are the called and who love God. Whatever it is, it's going to work out great in the long run for your relationship with the Kingdom of God. God will guide that if you are really serious about it. Jesus tells us not to worry, and then He gives us some things to think about, some positive things to think about, like in verse 20 of chapter 6 here, but lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven. You have to think about that, don't you? What is treasure in heaven? How do I lay up treasure there? Where moth doesn't destroy and rust doesn't corrupt, thieves don't break in and steal. There's something to think about. Positive to think about, some strategy and planning to think about. In verse 22, the lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore, if your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. There's nothing about the recession there, nothing about the latest clothing styles or what's wrong with my car there. I'm thinking about something that is really important, really important.

Chapter 7, verse 7, Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be open to you, as long as you're asking for the right things. And the right things have nothing to do with food, clothing, where you live, what you'll eat. It's about the things of loving your neighbor as yourself and loving God. And if you need help, if you want help, whatever you ask, God will give it in your spiritual development. If you want to ask about physical things like the Gentiles, he says there in verse 32, well, you're on your own with that one. Now if we look in verse 13 of chapter 7, Enter by the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction. Ooh, how am I going to get through the narrow gate? And am I on the right way? Am I on the broad one or the narrow one? Verse 24, Therefore, whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, what were his sayings? Am I doing them? I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock. See, there's lots to think about just in one passage of the Bible. Lots to take time and muse over, ponder, consider and plan about. God wants all of our thoughts to be clean. He wants them to be profitable and heading towards a wholesome life and a wholesome conclusion, his kingdom. Matthew chapter 5 and verse 8 makes the statement, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. The pure in heart, the pure in thought. What are we thinking about? What is our mind dwelling on? It's important, isn't it? We're supposed to get the right things in our mind and be thinking on the right things on this earth. Otherwise, we just kind of get lost among the choked out thorns. Here are some things we can think about. I'm not going to take you through a list of meditation scriptures today, but you can do that. The Sabbath and the week is a good time. You can take a concordance and look at some of the terms that the Bible used for thinking to meditate, to consider and ponder when it says to watch, looking to the state of your affairs, looking to the state of your spiritual development and your growth. Some of those things to remember, the Bible says, to examine. Or if you have a Nave's topical Bible, I think you can even get one free online or use one online for some of the Bible aids. You can look up the term meditate and find scriptures that talk about the thinking process with many different terms being used. These are going to be good things to make a Bible study out of.

One very beneficial form of a think about is to combine it with a fast. You can think of fasting as a way to make a lot of sense to a human. Why should I kill myself? Of course, we're afraid of going into a fast. I might die. I'm going to take away food. I don't know if I can do this. Talk about fear. Just mention fasting and the body says, whoa, whoa, hold on here. The purpose of a fast is really to have a think about what the little purpose is. The body is going to ask you about every five minutes. Why are you doing this? Why are we dying today? I keep forgetting. You can tell yourself, well, we're supposed to be thinking about some things today. There are some things I need to think about. I'm fasting. It's really got my attention. It's reminding me that I need to think about some things. I need some help thinking about things. I'm asking God for it. Looking in the Bible might be a day of work. Maybe that's the only day you have or a Sunday and you have to work in the yard. You're fasting and you're feeling it. You're taking whatever time you can to maybe go pray a little more or open the Bible or think about. You're thinking. The fast will help you think seriously about some things. It will humble you, it will make you irritable, it will make you think, I am very human and I'm not going to live if I keep this up. God resists the proud with the grace of the humble. So a fast can help you with humility. If it's combined with a think about, it can be a very powerful time. That's the thing that fasting really helps with. You can often ask, I think probably the only meaningful thing a fast will accomplish is, God, show me who I am. Show me what's wrong with me and show me how to fix it. That's what a fast is for. If you're fasting for something else, we could discuss it, but if you're fasting for something else, is that really what fasting is about? What am I? What do I need to change? And how can I go about doing that? Once you find the thing, once you determine what it is, once it comes to you, voila, I have found the thing that needs changing. I have pondered how to make the change, and I'm ready to go about it. Then stop your fast. You're done. You have come to the conclusion. It's time to get moving.

A fast, to be of value, must include a very serious think about. Let's look at fasting and the think about concept in Isaiah 58. Verse 6, Is this not the fast that I have chosen, says God? Here's what God wants us to do during a fast. The purpose of a fast, somebody says, I'm losing my job. Let's all fast. Somebody else says, there's something wrong in the world. Let's all fast. No, here's the fast that God has chosen. To lose the bonds of wickedness. Who's got the bonds of wickedness? Well, it's me. Oh, I'm supposed to lose those. Well, what wickedness? I'm a pretty good guy. My wife says she likes me. I have it in a card once a year. So what's wrong with me? Well, we've got to ask God. He's got to show it to us, doesn't he? We've got to lose the bonds of wickedness to undo the heavy burdens. Well, what heavy burdens? The ones I am placing on other people. And if I'm just listening to the noise of life and going rapidly, la la la, about things, I'll miss the little quiet voice. I will miss the opportunity for God to inspire me with where the wickedness is, where the heavy burdens are, to let the oppressed go free and break every yoke, to share your bread with the hungry, to bring your house to the poor who are cast out. When you see the naked that you cover him, that you don't hide yourself from your own flesh. That's the kind of fast that God wants us to. And sometimes we don't know that. A great time to fast, to do a think-about with a little push, is when everything is going just great.

Wow! Couldn't be better! My job's good! My health is good! Happiness is good! Income's good! Uh-oh! Little voice should say, Uh-oh! You're about to get it! You're not on this earth to live a charmed life where everything's smooth and then you step into the kingdom. You're here to grow. And if you think everything is just smooth as glass, you need to fast, because it ain't like that. It's not like that at all, or Jesus wouldn't have had us say, forgive us this day our daily sins. A lot of people don't see the daily sins. And so we need God's help. So I've mentioned this extremely good, beneficial form of meditation, is to combine it with a fast. But frequent daily think-abouts can be accomplished without fasting. Frequent daily think-abouts. It might not be as dramatic, though. It might not have the same result. A think-about. Now, what should I be thinking about on a think-about?

Why would I do a think-about? Just keep the radio on, you won't have to think about it.

Keep the cell phone handy, keep sending those SMS text messages, stay on Facebook, watch TV, work hard, keep the card and the radio on, stay with friends, do some partying. You know, you can avoid thinking. You can stay away from these things. Humans tend to think about the self. That's where we tend to go. And so it's important that we stop and think about ourselves as something other than the center of the world. And when you think of this, well, if you heard the news and listened to the news, afterwards you might say, well, I hear on the news there's a bad economy. You're going to be a bad economy. You're going to be a bad economy. Your mind says, think about that. How is it affecting you?

You see some people. You're around people. Or you'd like to be with people. You ask the question, how are they affecting me? How would being with them affect me? Do I want to be with them? How would I feel? Do I want to invite them over? How would I enjoy that person versus this person? As we go through the thought process, we could ask, how's the news affecting me? Not so much danger where I live, thankfully, so pretty good. Or maybe there are some issues I'd better look out for. The weather I heard is going to be hot and maybe some rain. How will that affect me? Maybe I put the car inside and maybe batten down some things that are sitting outside or something. See, how does it affect me? Pretty soon our whole life is about me. How's the church affecting me? How do I like church? What if I went to church today? How would that affect me? How would I feel? Would I feel better if I stayed on? Would I feel better if I went to church? See? How about my spouse? How does my spouse affect me? How does my career affect me? How do my children affect me? How is my house affecting me? And the end result is, my brain isn't pondering the right stuff. Even the things I should be thinking about often I flip it and it becomes about me. Let's go to Philippians 4 and verse 4, and I'll show you how this works. Philippians 4 and verse 4. I want you to read verse 4. Let's go ahead and read it one time. Give it a quick read. And I'll read it aloud. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say rejoice. Now, what do you think about that? Do you tend to rejoice a lot? Do I rejoice enough? How do you rejoice? How do I rejoice? Should I rejoice? How often should I rejoice?

There it says we should rejoice. Are you with me on this? I will probably give you a sermon right here. Or a sermonette anyway about the fact that we ought to rejoice. You ought to rejoice. Some of you people just don't look like you rejoice enough. That's better.

Let's read it one more time. Rejoice in the Lord always. Oh, it's not even about us. It never was about us. And yet, as soon as we read it, we say rejoice? Well, how do I rejoice? Do I rejoice enough? Am I a joyful person? It's not even about that. It's about rejoicing in the Lord. Again, I say rejoice, rejoicing in God.

It's about God. In verse 8, it says, Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, find yourself for me in there and I'll be surprised. Whatever things are noble, it's not about me. We're thinking about things that are truth and noble. Whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report. If there's any virtue, if there's anything praiseworthy, meditate.

Meditate on these things. Think about those things. You see, the opposite of before was about us and envy and jealousy, a little fear, worry. We're worried about everything gets twisted around to me. Now, we're told what to think about. Meditate. Think about these things. Good, noble things. How do those noble things compare to oneself and how do we pursue those noble things and how do we react to them in a positive way?

The supreme focus should be on God and others. The very thing that we are commanded to do as Christians is to love God and love others. Instead of being self-conscious, we need to be God and godly conscious. Godliness conscious.

Colossians 3, verse 1. If you are then raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. How can we do that? Verse 2. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. So we must think about things that are of God and godliness. Things that are not on the earth.

This requires a constant battle in my life. I assume it does in yours. Because my human nature doesn't want to go that direction. We need to get our mind off the self and on to others and on to things that are really valuable.

We need to meditate on God as our maker. Christ as our master. We need to think of Him as He is gracious towards others as He is gracious to us. Praise worthy to Him and to others for the good things that are done.

We need to contemplate what's going on around us. Ponder the perfection of God.

When you pray, Father in heaven, Your kingdom come. It's His kingdom and His righteousness we're to seek. And that righteousness is really something. That is something worth pondering. The righteousness of God. The total love and concern, the lack of any self that God has. He is the sum total of righteousness and the source of it. How can I be righteous only by Him living in me? How can I do that more today? You have to think about that. You can't just start saying, Help me, help me, and I'm off. Got the radio on. Got my telephone on. I'm good to go. We have to think about all the many things that God has built into His way, the things He expects of us, the role model that Jesus Christ is to us. It's good for us to read in the Bible and think about the things that are written here. Some people say, I don't know where to study the Bible. I'll tell you, a good place to start studying the Bible is right there. Many days, that's where I start. Or there. Because we all, I don't know what I'm going to study today. Well, there is going to be really interesting because I haven't been there in a while. And it's amazing what is there.

But when we start thinking about it, God has packed this book with things that are incredible, as long as we will take the time to contemplate them.

The longest chapter in the Bible is Psalm 119. You can almost, you might just try this, take your Bible and split right in the middle. I didn't get Psalm 119, but sometimes you do. It's a little left of center, I guess. But anyway, it's there. Sometimes it will fall open to Psalm 119.

And there's some verses here where David thinks about God, like verse 15 of Psalm 119. I will meditate, I will think about your precepts and contemplate your ways. And I've read that and I thought, what are God's precepts? I had to do a study to try to figure out what is a precept, because there's no list somewhere that says, these are the precepts, these are the judgments. I know these are the... figure out what those precepts were. And sure enough, there is a collection of some that are just considered to be precepts back in the Old Testament. You will meditate on those and contemplate your ways. Verse 97, Oh, how love I your law. I've told you before, when I was young in the church, I didn't love God's law. And I read that, I'd say, that's not me. Why not? Why am I not that way? But I don't like rules. I don't like laws. I get in the way of my carnality. And I'd have to think about that. Just like David said, it is my meditation all the day. It's what I think about all day, is your law. So I think, well, what is God's law exactly? Being a real New Testament kind of guy, I had to go back to the Old Testament and start reading through the law. And find out what that law says. And think about it. The applications of it, the judgments or the application of the law in certain situations. In your life, my life, and the life of people there that are laid out. And so David had to think about that. Verse 148, My eyes are awake through the night watches, that I may meditate on your word. Now, how many of you here like to have a bad night's sleep and stay awake at night and you can't sleep? And I've fought that for years in my life. If I wake up at night, I'm awake for two hours. If I fight it really, really hard, I'll be awake for two hours. If I don't fight it all, two hours is about how long it is. It doesn't matter what happens. Whether I watch the clock, whether I stretch, two hours I'm going to be awake. I finally came to realize, you know what? This could be productive time, because I'm going to be awake for two hours. Just the way it's going to happen here. And you know, there's two hours of really quiet time. My wife doesn't snore, so it's really quiet when I'm awake. And so I found that, wow, my brain's been cleared out. I've got a couple hours right here, and I can have a think about. And I can think about stuff. And you know what? It's very productive time. Now, if you're only able to go right back to sleep, then that's not a good idea. But for those of us who have the little block of time, you can use it productively. Don't get too excited, because it might be three hours or four hours, I find. It's good to have a little notepad by the bed, so you can just reach over in the dark, make a few notes, and say, I'll get back to this in the morning, I'll remember it, and then turn it off and go back to sleep. Just something to think about. Here's David. He says, you know, during the night, watch us. When I can't sleep, I meditate on your word. A good way to meditate can be to spend time outside. Now, it can be very distracting as well, but sometimes just to get away from the hustle and bustle and go outdoors, marvel at creation or take a walk or something, it can be very helpful. David said in Psalm 8, when I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers. There you are at night. Sometimes when you go up in the high country where the air is clean and you see all those stars at night, just taken aback by that.

When I consider the heavens, your heavens, the work of your fingers. Ah, you have to think about that. God made every one of those balls of burning gas up there. God made the bush. God made the bug. God made the most common thing. And the more you start thinking about that, the more you can begin to think about God and what He's done, how little time you have here. He says, the moon and the stars, which you've set in place, what is man that you are mindful of Him and the Son of man that you care for Him? We can learn a lot about our loving Creator. When you think, oh no, He doesn't really care for me. I don't even think He knows I'm here. I've got a pain. I've got an ache. My life's falling apart. My finances are in the toilet. There must not, I don't know if God must not be thinking of me. Oh really? Really? Just take a look at an animal or a bug or a plant and contemplate that for a while. And how much time and effort God had to put into that. The lines of plumage, the colors on a bird's feather that's replicated millions of times over with little variations. All that God put into every species. The incredible things like a hummingbird or a butterfly. How does that happen? Can you imagine a butterfly? This huge thing? If you were the size of a butterfly, your wings would be that big. And you'd be going, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah. Popping all over the place. And the wind's blowing. But you know that butterfly knows where it's going. It's accomplishing something. They can fly all the way from Mexico to Canada and back.

You don't think God knows about what you're going through? Yes, He does. He really does. But to meditate, to think about. When do I have time for that? I have too many weeds choking me. Well, that's the point. I don't have time. There's too much busyness going on. I don't have time to study or to think or to pray or just to go out and think.

There's no time. That's the point. You're one of the ones, Jesus said, you know, the cares of this world are choking this seed, this plant, from growing. You need to get rid of some of the cares of the world. Shut the radio off. Throw the TV out the window. You know? Sell your cell phone. Make a little time to think. Life is busy. We get up in the morning.

Time to prepare. Time to get ready for school or work. Time to get ready for chores. Have to drive somewhere. There's people you interact with. There's meals to make or to be eaten. There are responsibilities. There's news it's important to get. And there's radio. There's entertainment. There's things to see and do. There's chores.

There's maintenance. We've got to sleep as well. Relationships to keep going. When do I have time for that? Well, life is busy. Any good employer wants every second of your time with full concentration. The loved ones need you. They want your focus. You have some personal ambitions to fit in, no doubt, in this lifetime. Anytime left over, Satan is luring you to some choking activities. And the righteous know this.

One of the fruits of God's Holy Spirit is self-control. And how do you figure all this out? Well, you have to have a think about, don't you? You have to say, now look here. I've got to stop and think about what I'm going to do with my time and how I'm going to have time to think about things and how I'm going to really get my life organized here and start saying no to a few things and yes to a few other things.

Now, when can we think about? Well, a think about should start the day. Prayer, you know the model outline, prayer was done often three times a day by righteous people in the Bible, starting the day out with a prayer leads one right into the right things to be thinking about. God the Father in Heaven, about His holiness and the source of all that is sanctified is Him. His kingdom, His righteousness, the fact that needs to come today, now, as the Lord and Master, as the one with the laws, as the defined territory of His body, and ultimately in the future for all of mankind and eventually to embrace us in a spiritual form and a spiritual dimension.

His will be done on earth as it is in Heaven, starting with me. Today is God's will being done of me pursuing His kingdom and His righteousness. Give us this day our daily bread. Here it is, Jesus, the bread from Heaven.

Give us this heart for me to pray that prayer and know that I'm not going to be studying today. Feed me with your word, but I won't be reading your word today. It's a real trigger right there. I can choke on that. Some days when I know, you know, I'm busy and I'm going to be running out the door. When am I going to study? Ahhh! You know? Don't lead us into temptation. Don't allow us to be led into temptation. Deliver us from Satan. And the fact that His is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, all about Him, all of that you see is about good things, a great way to start the day.

And it requires us to think about things. And you can tell at the end of your prayer and say, was I thinking about the right things or was there a honey-do list for God? Give me this, help me with that, do this for me, bless that, blah, blah, blah, blah.

If so, you're not thinking about the right things. You need to get your mind onto the right things. The Gentiles do that, remember? God's got a lot of people trying to send up prayers for that kind of stuff.

In Psalm 1 and verse 2, it says, A righteous man's delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law he meditates day and night. When do we have time to think about these things? Well, you might ask, well, what's the law of God? The meditate on the law of God, is it my checklist? Do I have a checklist? Let's see. Am I good? Let's see. Did I do that? Am I doing this? Doing that? Doing this? Yep, I think I'm good. That's kind of the law. I've got my 10 commandments on the wall there. Daily little, use an erasable marker, you know. Just check them off. Yep, good for today. Tomorrow you can kind of do that. And, you know, go back down. See if you missed any.

Is that what it is, or is it the real growing, mature love of God and love of fellow man, loving and serving and giving, realizing that today is not about me and reminding us of that? Bible study. Time to pause and meditate about what you're reading, understanding it, inspired using it. Let's turn to Proverbs 7 for a minute and read it together, shall we? Proverbs 7. This won't take long. I guarantee it. Proverbs 7. Here we are for daily Bible study. Work's starting in a few minutes. Car's warming up outside. Time for Bible study. Here we go. Proverbs 17. Sorry. Delayed you a little bit there.

Chapter 17, verse 1. We'll just do three verses because we're in a hurry. Better is a dry morsel with quietness than a house full of feasting with strife. A wife servant will rule over a son who causes shame and will share an inheritance among the brothers. The refining pot is for silver, the furnace for gold, but the Lord tests the hearts. We're off.

We've done our Bible study. Now we're good to go. What did we learn? What resonated? What meaning came out of that?

You know, you have to think about what you read, don't you? You have to analyze it, contemplate it. And so we have to pause and meditate what we're about reading. You don't get any points for how much you read. I read four books today. I read two chapters today. I only read six verses today. Guess what? One of your most meaningful days is when you read one verse, one verse, and find that one verse. Sometimes it takes a while to find the one verse or a half a verse. And then leave and go ponder. Think about that verse all day or that statement within a verse. And sometimes it can use up a whole week right there. And you can analyze it, assess it, make it relevant.

Bible study is just a matter of getting God's Word into your mind so that you can use it, ponder it throughout the day. Think about it. The Good News magazine said, to digest and absorb God's Word, we need to chew it well. That's a good statement. You can look at a plate of food.

Well, if I get that down, I've eaten dinner. God! The body can't really use it very much. But if you take the same food and you chew it 32 times, or whatever people say you ought to do, which I'm guilty of not following, your body can really digest it. It can really make use of it.

Okay, we've talked about when to meditate. Prayer, actually, is a time to think about. Bible study is a good time to think about. What about breaks? What do you do during your breaks? You know, if a person has a break from work, a break from school, a break from a chore, what do you do during a break? Visit some people that are there. Get chatty. Jump on the phone. Watch TV. Catch up on the radio. Maybe you're driving in the car. Pick up the latest reports. Maybe you can read something. You can text message. Send some emails. Choke. You know, we're just getting choked. Just choking ourselves. During a break, what about a quiet room? What about a park? What about taking a walk? Just finding time, making time, breaking a little time out. How about in the evening? Why do you have a yard, by the way? Why is it? Is it so that you can mow it? I think that's what most yards are for. So that somebody will be able to use all their available remaining time to dress and keep the yard. Why bother? I mean, really, why bother? Why not just paint the back windows of the house and never go out there? Save yourself a lot of time, because you don't go out there anyway. You get it all trimmed up. You go inside and sit and watch TV. So what's the yard for? I've got a good friend who built a beautiful garden in his backyard. I don't mean eating garden. One with rock steps, rock wall, a big flowing waterfall into a pool with beautiful bushes, exotic plants, and a seat to sit on. He never sits on the seat. It's too much work to do. Trimming the garden, mowing the garden, fixing the waterfall. And he's a busy person. It's sad. It's beautiful. You just see yourself. And that's why it was created. You could just see yourself sitting there and thinking about things. We spend too much time tending, but how about using it for meditating? Instead of sitting out there and thinking, oh, that needs trimming, that needs mowing, that needs watering, I'm behind on pulling the weeds over there. A minister and his wife in South Africa, who have now moved to New Zealand, set an interesting example for something they do every day at five o'clock. They sit in chairs, in the backyard, looking out and appreciating life and thinking about. And the two of them we'll talk about, too. I'm not saying it's a time for meditation for them, but actually, this idyllic thing that ever since Monty and I saw that has been stuck in my head. Every day at five o'clock, they're on their patio, having a refreshment and enjoying that beautiful view. It's just amazing. Just a wonderful thing to do, but I don't have time for that. And what about night times? Well, like I said, we can utilize those times at night when things are quieter, when the kids are in bed. You don't have to fill everything with chattering noise and distractions. You can spend some quiet, reflective time. Again, like I said, also when you wake up, you can do a little reflection as well. But when we think about God, we think about His way, we begin to absorb it. It's almost like that food we're eating, a spiritual diet. We begin to absorb it. It begins to give us some spiritual energy, some strength and some direction. And God's way truly can become written in our hearts, not just the old commandment of the laws, but actually it becomes part of us now. We're living it. I'm not saying that you're not or I'm not, but I think, in part, none of us lack a need for growth.

And so to stop and think about this is very beneficial. It says in Joshua 1, verse 8, The book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall observe to do according to all that is written within it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. How can we do that? Well, we have to think about it. Think about what we're reading. Think about what we're doing. Thinking about God's way and us in it. That includes self-examination. It's not very beneficial to think about something and then not let it prompt you that changes need to be made. Introspection is very good. We need to look for sins, but we need to ask God for help with them. That's why the component of fasting can be helpful when we're thinking about things. God knows you. He can help you see you, but you have to have time to contemplate what He's trying to show you. God will help with your meditation. God will help with your thinking. If you want to stop and think about those things, Jesus said, whatever you ask in my name, God will give you. Those are the things that He wants us to ask for. But we live in a world with a static background of life, and the noise is always there, and it's drowning out the things that are important. And if we're not careful, you'll never think about these things. That's what Satan wants each of us to do.

He wants us to become disqualified because we just never thought about that. Our lives are too busy. And we're like the seeds, Jesus said, of the sower that get choked out by the cares of this world. In conclusion, take a think about. Take one often. It's a vital use of your time. Find a quiet place. Find a quiet time. Make time to think about God and godliness, and where you're heading, what you're doing, how you can be more like Him.

As David said in Psalm 19 and verse 14, Let the words of my mouth and my meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer.