Muse vs. Meditate

Muse: To be absorbed in one’s thoughts.

The writer of Psalm 77 (Asaph) is in distress. He feels like God has deserted him, and he doesn’t know why. During sleepless nights, his brain and his heart are working overtime. Questioning. Wrestling. Seeking. The NIV translates this activity as musing. Eventually this Psalmist’s thoughts lead him to questions: “Has the Lord’s unfailing loved vanished forever? Has His promise failed? Has God forgotten to be merciful?”

I have to admit, I am a ‘muser’, too. I have the unfortunate gift of regularly having to lay awake for hours with my brain screaming at a million miles a minute. At best, those are radically creative moments, and I’m glad for those—but often they are times of musing and questioning. When I let my brain go for too long with no boundaries I’m afraid I can also end up down dark pathways like Asaph did.

Meditate: To consider, think on, i.e., ponder and so give serious consideration to information, or a situation

Half way through this Psalm, though, the atmosphere suddenly changes. Asaph decides to focus his musing msn reverse phone lookup on something specific: the Word and works of God. The NIV translates this as meditation. Though the Hebrew word translated muse and meditation are actually the same here, I think the difference of word choice in English is helpful. One kind of meditation centers on our situations and easily leads to a downward spiral as we, in our own power, try to figure out “why?”; the other kind of meditation centers on God and His Word and will bring us up towards Him, as we see in verses 10-20.

Meditation can be one of the greatest benefits for our lives, provided that our meditation is on God’s truth. When we simply open and empty our hearts and minds, as some non-Biblical meditation practices suggest, our lives can be filled with unnecessary worry and even errant understanding of God’s stance towards us (“Has the Lord stopped loving me?”). When we ponder and give serious consideration to the Word of God and His works, we get to embrace the rock-solid reality that God is big enough and loving enough to take care of us well.