Week 14 – The Forms of Meditation – Meditation upon Creation

Celebration of Discipline Bible Study

Prepared by: Rev. Willetta Ar-Rahmaan

Week 14 – The Forms of Meditation – Meditation upon Creation

            The third form of meditation Foster defined is “meditation upon creation”.  We give attention to the “created order” (ie trees, moon, stars, mountains, ocean, and etc).  As we travel across the world, in our city and state we marvel at the wonderful, majestic creation of God.  The handiwork of God causes us to sit for hours and praise God for the beauty of creation. 

            Every time I fly to the west coast, I’m always amazed at the formation of the clouds at 34,000 feet or when we fly over the Grand Canyon the view is breath taking.  While sitting on the plane looking out the window one can’t help but to reflect and meditate on what God created out of emptiness. Maybe some of us don’t fly, but we find ourselves sitting outside or inside during the summer watching the movement of a butterfly or hummingbird going from flower to flower.  We may become intrigued and want to get closer but instead we sit there smiling knowing that God created them for a different purpose.  We have found ourselves as “Evelyn Underhill recommends, “…begin with that first form of contemplation which the old mystics sometimes called, ‘the discovery of God in his creatures.’ “ (p. 31).  We are truly discovering God when we are meditating upon creation.

            As we watch the created order of God we learn lessons and God reveals things to us we never saw or heard before.  When we meditate upon creation we can relate to Psalm 19:1 “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.”  Then when we read the beginning of Genesis Chapter 1, “On the first day God created light and darkness, night and day; on the second, the firmament separating earthly and heavenly waters; on the third, dry land and vegetation; on the fourth, the heavenly luminaries of the sun (‘greater luminary’) for ruling the day and the moon (chief ‘lesser luminary’) for ruling the night; on the fifth, sea creatures and birds; and on the sixth, land creatures and humans.”^[1]

            As we keep reading we start to notice Psalm 150, Daniel 12:3, James 1:18 and Revelation 5:13.  These are just some scriptures to read and others may come to mind while meditating upon creation.  Since we are apart of God’s creation, we may find ourselves meditating on the gifts and vision God gave human beings.  Imagine the creation of the internet, airplane, cars, trains and building. When we truly meditate on creation we are taking an in-depth look, we want to be able to smell the salty ocean waters, listen intently to the songs the birds sing, watch how the snowflakes fall to the ground and feel a warm summer breeze.  We want our senses to be engaged and allow our mind to see beyond the surface but focus on the source of all these beautiful and marvelous creation of God.

Fun assignment:

Identify a creation of God and meditate on it deeply and engage your senses. 

Describe how this creation makes you feel

Write the simple message God revealed to you about that creation

Post the simple message to the blog.

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^[1]Achtemeier, Paul J. ; Harper & Row, Publishers ; Society of Biblical Literature: Harper's Bible Dictionary. 1st ed. San Francisco : Harper & Row, 1985, S. 192