Photo: Joshua Earle – Unsplash

We may not often use the word ‘contemplation’; we might even have negative thoughts about it. But in reality, we contemplate things all the time: Pondering a special memory; looking forward to an upcoming holiday, picturing in your mind’s eye the scenery, the activities and the company; stopping to gaze at a view; getting caught up in a film or a sports match. If you’re a Christian perhaps you’ve been singing a hymn or a worship song or thinking about a Bible verse and you’ve felt as though you’ve moved beyond yourself – you’ve got a glimpse of God, his glory and his beauty. When did you last contemplate something in that way?

1, What is contemplation?

Contemplation is pausing to think about something (often a thing we find delightful); reflecting on it in our mind’s eye; and moving beyond thought to enjoyment and delight. Consider the difference between stargazing and astronomy: The astronomer studies the stars for the purpose of understanding them better; the stargazer contemplates the stars – enjoying and delighting in them.

We all contemplate things and are formed by them

We’re all contemplatives – that is, we all contemplate things. And we are formed by – shaped by – the things we contemplate. If we spend time contemplating a celebrity or thinker and their ideas we’ll become more like them: As we look at them, observe them and listen to them our priorities will become their priorities, our desires their desires, our mannerisms their mannerisms. If we contemplate a view, our desire for such things will grow and grow. Tragically there are millions – perhaps billions – of people around the world who spend hours contemplating pornographic images, and they are shaped and changed by them in a negative way: unable to form loving relationships, only longing for the next kick.

Christians need to contemplate the beautiful God

Given that we all contemplate things and are formed by them, Christians desperately need to contemplate the beautiful God: To gaze on him and enjoy him – so that increasingly he is our chief desire. This is essential because if God isn’t our chief desire, something else will be.

2, How and what might we contemplate?

How?

In his book how to pray Pete Greig helpfully sets out 3 stages of contemplation:

1, Meditation – The ‘me and God’ stage

Fix your thoughts on a Bible verse; a worship song; or a part of God’s creation with an attitude of praise to the Creator. If it’s a Bible verse you reflect on it, chew it over in your mind, think about what it means for you. This can be hard work, engaging your mind to focus.

In this stage, you’re very much aware of yourself and what’s going on around you; but through engagement with the object of your meditation an awareness of God is growing in your consciousness.

2, Contemplation – the ‘God and me’ stage

As you continue, the centre of gravity shifts from ‘me’ to God. You’re still aware that you’re involved, but God is your chief concern. Increasingly your focus is delight in his character, works, goodness and love.

Whilst meditation might be hard work, contemplation isn’t – because whilst the mind is still engaged, now the heart is fully engaged; and it’s all in the power of the Holy Spirit, because spiritual things are only seen in the Spirit’s power.

3, Oneness – ‘Only God’

Most of the time we won’t move beyond stage 2. But occasionally, in the power of the Holy Spirit we can move on to stage 3 which I’ve called ‘Oneness.’ We forget about ourselves completely, and our focus is wholly and fully on God. I wonder if you’ve ever experienced that? There is a glorious freedom: All our worries and self-focus evaporate; we are caught up in the wonder of adoring the glorious God, which is precisely what we were made for.

What?

What sorts of things might we contemplate as Christians? Let me suggest a few things.

God’s love for me

Elsewhere in this blog I have suggested that we all need to know God’s love for us at a deep level. Consider this famous prayer of the apostle Paul:

I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Ephesians 3:17-19

Paul sees that what the Ephesians – and we – need is to grasp God’s love for us at the deepest level – “that surpasses knowledge.” This is how we will move on in the Christian life.

How can we contemplate God’s love? Start by meditating on a verse from the Bible that tells us about God’s love. Or listen to hymns and worship songs that celebrate the love of God.

Simple biblical images and phrases can be helpful to have in mind as well. For example, I find it helpful to think about the image of the father running towards the son in the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:20); and the look that a bridegroom gives to his bride as she walks down the aisle (Isaiah 62:5). Those are both biblical images that communicate God’s deep, devoted, compassionate, passionate love for those who are trusting in Christ.

Or take this little phrase that a friend shared with me recently:

There’s nothing I can do today that will make God love me more; there’s nothing I can do today that will make God love me less.

Philip Yancey

John Mark Comer describes contemplation itself in the context of God’s love:

Looking at God looking at me in love.

John Mark Comer, Practicing the way

God’s beauty

God’s beautiful character and works are displayed throughout the Bible, for us to savour and delight in. I’ve explored this more in a series of blog posts.

Here are a few places you might start:

  • Looking at a view, a beautiful sunset, a majestic thunderstorm or the ocean and considering what it reveals to us about the God who created it.
  • Considering Christ on the cross – what it reveals about his love, his humility, his obedience, his submission to the Father, and so on.
  • Dwelling on the joyful love relationship between the persons of the Trinity.
  • Considering the great unity of purpose and Spirit that God delights to bring about – for example, through a movement of churches working together to reach a city with the gospel (such as we are experiencing in Hull through Hull 2030).

Great truths of Christianity / about Jesus Christ

Consider a particular truth, perhaps starting with a Bible verse or a worship song. Chew on it in your mind, slowly allowing it to sink down into your heart. Soon you will find yourself praising and adoring God as you consider his goodness, justice, sovereignty, humility; or consider the joy of heaven – the list of possibilities is endless.

3, Why is contemplation important?

But is contemplation really all that important? We lead such busy lives that sometimes we even struggle to pray – so surely contemplation is one luxury too many? Pete Greig writes:

Your soul is crying out for a deeper encounter with Christ and if your faith is to thrive for years to come, if it is to survive the coming seasons of darkness and pain, if you are to know and be known by Jesus in a richer, more fulfilling way, if you are to continue to engage with him when words no longer have meaning, if you are to become the loving person he wants you to be and to see the world the way he sees it, you must make space in your life for regular meditation and contemplation.

Pete Greig, How to pray

Being more specific, contemplation can help us:

To keep going in our faith

In Psalm 27 King David is facing hardship, enemies, difficulty. Here is his response:

One thing I ask from the Lord,
this only do I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to gaze on the beauty of the Lord
and to seek him in his temple.

Psalm 27:4

He sees that gazing on the beauty of the Lord will keep him going through the hard things in life.

To enable us to serve

Early in his book Isaiah relates how his call began with a vision of the glorious, beautiful, holy God:

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”
At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

Isaiah 6:1-4

Or consider Moses, whose ministry begins with the vision of the burning bush (Exodus 3). Moses is sustained through the wilderness years by regularly gazing on God (Exodus 34:29-35).

Pete Greig writes:

What if the hour you spend in the prayer room is when you refocus on Jesus so you can carry his presence with you into the other 23 hours of the day with a heightened awareness that he is with you, he is for you, he likes you, he hears your thoughts. You start to pray in real time. You instinctively lift situations to the Lord in the actual moment that you experience them… You’re no longer deferring all your prayers to some later, holier moment, because your whole life is becoming that holier moment.”

Pete Greig, How to pray

This has certainly been my experience, as I have tried to follow the example of George Muller by starting the day seeking to be happy in God.

To help us fight temptation

In his famous sermon ‘The Expulsive power of a new affection’ (accessible online) Thomas Chalmers argues that if we want to overcome a desire for something sinful – whatever it may be – then it’s futile simply to tell ourselves to stop: It is in our nature to find a way to justify pursuing the sinful thing we desire. Rather, the only way to overcome the desire for something sinful is to have a greater desire for something good – so that the latter desire overcomes the former. The classical stories of how Ulysses and Jason deal with the temptation of the sirens give a powerful illustration of this.

For the Christian, that greater desire is God. We need to cultivate a longing and love for God and his beauty and his love for us, that it increasingly overcomes whatever the sinful desire might be. Of course this doesn’t happen overnight. I can testify personally that it’s a long journey, taking years. But little by little, the desire for God can and does replace the sinful desire; and contemplation is the means of cultivating that desire.

To make us more like Christ / prepare us for heaven

For this final motive, I will simply allow the Bible to speak for itself:

And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

2 Corinthians 3:18

Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

1 John 3:2-3

Taking it further

How to pray – Pete Greig
Means of grace / spiritual disciplines: https://imperfect-pastor.com/tag/means-of-grace/

Practicing the way: https://www.practicingtheway.org/