Dr Micha Jazz has been walking the path of a Contemplative Activist for around ten years. Here he explores the difference between meditation and contemplation and looks at them in three different ways.
Meditation and contemplation are two distinct prayer disciplines forming part of the fivefold framework for encountering God: Thanksgiving, Confession, Intercession, Meditation and Contemplation.
Meditation uses some external reference, say a scripture or a scene from nature, and invites the imagination to draw close and encounter God afresh. Contemplation invites us to wait for God to approach to us directly and so involves the disciplines of silence and stillness.
We can look at meditation and contemplation in three ways;
As an Anchor for our Life and Witness
I live on the south coast of England and, walking my dog along the shore, watch the lobster boats working amongst their pots. They work the same collecting pattern everyday. Unless of course their work is interrupted by a mighty storm, after which many pots will have been torn from their anchors and carried away in ferocious seas.
The essential essence of prayer is to anchor us in the faith of Christ. This is especially the case with meditation & contemplation since, rather than us initiating prayers, we quietly open ourselves up to listen to God's voice. It is this voice of God that will guide us effectively through all the storms of life. Yet so often it's the intensity of the storm itself that is the reason we lose sight of God. Then, torn from our moorings, we doubt our security in Christ and His ways whilst bobbing about helplessly and aimlessly upon life's vast ocean. James writes, '...for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord' (James 1:6-7).
Therefore, to remain stable and true to God through the trials and tribulations of life, we take time to develop the practices of Meditation & Contemplation.
As an Encounter with the Triune God
Whilst experiencing a strong encounter with God at my conversion aged 19, I very quickly fell in love with the work of God as an evangelist with Youth for Christ. I made the mistake of stopping my disciplined prayer life, convincing myself that the work of God was itself really prayer. Foolishness and pride combined to ensure that, whilst I gained profile and platform, I lost sight of the person and presence of my Saviour. The end result was six months off work with physical and emotional exhaustion.
When we fail to pause, or to 'Be still and know' as the psalmist says (Psalm 46:10), we stop nourishing our spiritual nature within. It's like refusing to eat food in order to save time, failing to acknowledge that our physical strength will fail as a result.
As a Revelation to Ourselves and to Others
Mediation & contemplation ensure that we regularly encounter God. We are invited to live in the flow of encounter and embrace. Crafted by God's love, each one of us is a unique expression of the Trinity's love and life, itself a picture of the eternal God's embrace. We take time each day in encountering God to engage with the One who sustains all life. In such encounters we seek to discover more of the truth and reality of God ourselves. We become refreshed and re-energised.
Such moments clarify our call and strengthen our resolve in following closely in the footsteps of Jesus. Embraced by The Lord, we return to incarnate, or 'flesh out' the reality of love's embrace throughout the earth.
The only way God was able to communicate his love to humanity was through incarnation. Stepping from his eternal encounter and embrace within the Trinity, Jesus literally squeezed himself into a human body, and chose freely to live among us. Women and men, old and young, poor and rich, encountered firsthand the very reality of God in person. Eventually executed for no greater crime than loving people, Jesus' arms were stretched out upon a crude wooden gibbet in readiness to embrace a lost and broken humanity, including both you and me.
In like manner we are now invited and commissioned to return from that Divine embrace, our meditation & contemplation, and live out a life of love in serving others, emancipating those oppressed by circumstances beyond their immediate control. Through such acts of service we extend God's embrace to those living at the margins of our society, be they down the street or around the world.
