Incorporating Christianity into Mindfulness and Meditation

Incorporating Christianity into your mindfulness and meditation practice can have many benefits. Bringing your Christian faith to these healing practices can improve your mental health and the closeness of your relationship with Christ.

What is Mindfulness and Meditation?

Mindfulness is the practice of fully attending to the present moment without judgment. You may focus on what’s happening, what you are doing, and what’s happening in the space around you. Often, you do this by focusing on stimuli coming through your senses.

Meditation is a practice in which an individual uses a technique to train attention and awareness and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm state. These techniques include mindfulness or focusing on a particular object, thought, or activity.

Why Christians May Benefit from Mindfulness and Meditation?

Christians can benefit from mindfulness and meditation, and there are references to them throughout the Bible. Moments of stillness and attention can open you to hearing God’s voice: “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10a).

Mindfulness

Mindfulness can help you get in touch with your experiences in the present moment that so often we can resist or avoid. Some of the ways we resist and avoid include:

• Intellectualizing through thinking, ruminating, fixing, and analyzing.
• Distracting ourselves with technology (especially social media), video games, tasks, and substances.
• Labelling and judging
• Sleeping (when the purpose is to avoid, not for health or rest reasons)

In Romans (12:2), Paul encourages us to engage in an ongoing “renewing of your mind.” That can be done with mindfulness practice, where we let go of what has gone before and focus on what is happening in the present moment. Some of the benefits of mindfulness include:

• Improving cognitive ability
• Slowing brain aging
• Reducing stress, fatigue, anxiety, and depression symptoms
• Increasing a sense of well-being
• Helping with pain management
• Improving quality of life for those living with chronic conditions
• Improving sleep, immune response, and well-being
• Increasing job satisfaction in the workplace

You can also bring mindfulness to your emotions by observing them. You notice your emotions with gentle attention, knowing God holds us through each day’s emotional fluctuations.

Mindfulness gives us the focus and openness needed to lay down resistance to the beautiful things God has in store for us. For Christians, mindfulness is a gift that brings us into the present moment, where we can meet God.

Meditation

Meditation can bring more peace and contentment to your life. Multiple passages in the Bible talk about meditating. Some of the benefits of meditation include:

• Giving you a new way to look at things that cause stress.
• Building skills to manage your stress.
• Making you more self-aware.
• Focusing on the present.
• Reducing negative feelings.
• Helping you be more creative.
• Helping you be more patient.
• Lowering resting heart rate and blood pressure.
• Helping you sleep better.
• Can improve anxiety, chronic pain, heart disease, depression, insomnia, and headaches.

The Benefits of Incorporating Christianity with Mindfulness and Meditation

Mindfulness and meditation can bring you into the stillness and silence where His voice can be heard. It is difficult to hear God in today’s world’s noise, restlessness, and chaos. Christian meditation can deepen your relationship with God and change your character to be filled with the fruit of the Spirit — love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).

When you use meditation to focus your mind on God and His Word, you become a person whose thoughts and emotions will align with God’s purposes. Christian meditation can fill you with hope and enable you to emulate Him, help you flourish (Psalm 1), and allow you to resist sin and live wisely (Psalm 119). Meditating on scripture will make you wiser, have more understanding, and give you better insight (Psalm 119). Ultimately, Christian meditation can mature and deepen your faith, open your heart to greater intimacy with God, and cultivate your faith with wisdom and understanding.

How Can Christianity Be Incorporated into Mindfulness

Paul called on Christians to be mindful and live with an awareness of the present (Philippians 2:1-5). We can be transformed by renewing our minds (Romans 12:2) and practicing God-honouring thoughts (Philippians 4:9).

Mindfulness is about embracing all God has given you by being fully present in each moment. When we embrace each moment as a gift from God, we stop pushing away our experience and open up to what God has for us in that moment.

Prayer can be one way to apply mindfulness in daily life (1 Thessalonians 5:17). Another way to incorporate Christianity into mindfulness is to use nature (God’s creation) to embrace the present moment and gifts He has given you.

How Can Christianity Be Incorporated into Meditation

Christian meditation is about practicing meditation within the context of your Christian beliefs. Meditation appears in the Bible in the context of spending time focusing on God’s word (Psalm 48, Psalm 63). It’s about filling your mind with thoughts of God and His word and being transformed by the character of Christ. It is about attaching yourself to God and being focused on his word.

Christian meditation is about spending time with God, acknowledging His presence in our lives, and surrendering our perspectives and time to Him.

Scripture is a great place to start. Read a few verses, ponder over each phase, and allow them to saturate your soul. You may find that after a while (which may involve reading the verses multiple times), you notice the words speaking to your heart.

Meditation can be done in nature, a peaceful place, a quiet corner, or a place inside you where you find quiet. Take it slow, be real and rest in the presence of God. Let the distractions of the world fade away, and focus on God and His Word. Open your heart and be intentional as you focus on God and His word.

Meditation on Scripture

Place is not important as long as you can focus on God. Start small and ask the Holy Spirit to speak to you through the Word of God. Take a few deep breaths as you focus on His presence. When your mind wanders, gently return to the scripture and continue meditating.

Psalms

We also find many references to meditation throughout the Book of Psalms. The psalms speak about meditations coming from the heart (Psalm 19), meditating on the word of God (Psalm 119), and meditating on God’s way.

Prayer

Prayer can be a form of meditation in which we go to a quiet place and pray to our heavenly Father (Matthew 6:6). We can focus on the Word of God and the Living Word in Jesus Christ.

Meditation on God’s Promises and Message

We can also meditate on the promises of God and the message of Jesus. Here are a few ideas of things you can meditate on:

• A sermon you enjoyed
• A biblical figure you admire
• Your commitment to God (Psalm 19:14)            
• Your assurance of God (Psalm 46:10)
• Your position before God (Psalm 63:1)
• Your practice serving God (Psalm 34)
• Your vulnerability to God (Psalm 139:23, 24)    
• Your priorities before God (Colossians 3:12-14)
• Your surrender to God (Galatians 2:20)              
• Your rescue through God (Matthew 11:28, 29)
• Your hope in God (John 16:33) 
• God’s attributes and actions
• God’s character (Psalm 145)
• What it means to be a Child of God

Focus on God’s Creation

You can also meditate on nature and the beautiful world that God has given you. You can marvel at the complexities of the world He created and feel the soothing nature of nature in your soul.

Conclusion

Incorporating Christianity with mindfulness and meditation can be powerful for your mental health and relationship with God. There are many ways of approaching mindfulness and meditation in a Christian way, and just as many benefits can come from it. It can be a powerful way of deepening your faith.