In the last year I have been challenged by Richard Foster's book Celebration of Discipline. The men of our small group went through most of it together and now Rebecca and I have begun to go through one chapter a month. It has been a rich experience to read and try to incorporate new "ways" of relating to God into my everyday life. Normally, I've always regarded Bible reading/study and prayer as the two "essentials". However, Foster's book brings to light other avenues of bringing spirituality into my daily experience.
The first discipline that Foster talks about is "meditation". Meditation is an inward focused discipline. Basically, in a Christian sense, this is letting your mind become absorbed with truth. For example, I have begun to run through verses of Scripture over and over in my mind. I do this sometimes out loud, but most often to myself. This type of meditation (meditation on Scripture) is one type of meditation, but Foster speaks of other types: meditation on creation (Psalm 19) and meditation on current events to gain perspective on what the Lord is doing in the world. Boiling it down to the most fundamental, meditation is reflecting, contemplating, and fixing my mind on something intentionally. It is letting the truth of God absorb my attention. In my mind this is the type of discipline that Paul commanded when he said, "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy think about such things" (Philippians 4:8). I highly recommend Foster's book and I this discipline in particular.
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