I found this term used today to describe Psalm 119:65 —

You have kept your promise, Lord,
    and you are good to me, your servant.

I use the term pre-discipleship when it comes to discipling others and so it caught my attention. It would seem that pre-praying is moving forward and getting ahead in prayer by allowing the things of this world to be presented to Jesus and then taking the time to have fellowship with Him. The intent was that I would start by presenting all the cares of the world that are taking up space in my mind and once I am empty of those, I spend all my time with Him in conversation. It is here that God’s promises become real and here where I would excel in my thankfulness. In this place it is believed that blessings would flow. Although I like the term, I will have to ponder it some more as I prefer to leave the things of this world in His hands anyway and start the day immediately in fellowship with Him.

It is interesting to compare Owen’s three steps of meditation to those of the traditional Catholic and Benedictine practice of lectio divina, or “divine reading,” as described by Thelma Hall in Too Deep for Words: Rediscovering Lectio Divina (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1988). The four steps of lectio divina are reading, meditating, prayer, and contemplation. (1) Reading the Scripture in lectio divina means slow, meditative perusal of a Biblical passage. In lectio it is not recommended that you try to theologically analyze the text for doctrinal meanings. Instead you should wait on the Holy Spirit to show you something within the text especially for you. Wait for something to draw your interest and grab your attention and note it. You are looking for something that seems very relevant for “me, now” in my current situation. Once you have done this, move on to (2) Meditation. Hall suggests two kinds of meditation. One is using the imagination, putting yourself into the biblical scene (if it is a narrative) and thinking of what it would have been like to see the actions and hear the words yourself. If Jesus is in the passage, imagine him looking into your eyes and saying the words to you. The second approach is to take the actual words and repeat them to yourself, pondering the meaning of each word or phrase. Hall says that meditation in any form is basically a cognitive and intellectual activity. But the goal of meditation, regardless of the method is to start to feel God’s love. Once you begin to feel your heart warmed with this love, you should move into (3) Prayer. A metaphor of fire is used at this point, taken from Teresa of Avila. When meditation leads to a small fire of feeling and love, don’t keep meditating—that is like throwing more wood on the fire, and too much fuel can smother the fire. Instead, now we should begin to just pray, just talking to God the way you would talk to a loved one. Nurture the love-fire with small pieces of “fuel”—a glance at a Scripture now and then—and just begin to pray, by longing for union with the one we love. This leads, finally, to (4) Contemplation. This Hall defines as “interior silence.” Any kind of thinking of thoughts, analysis, and reasoning, is basically being “in charge” and not surrendering to God. She recommends books about “centering prayer” to help us achieve, not thinking any thoughts “about” him, but experiencing direct, wordless, adoring awareness of him and his presence.

The similarities and differences between Owen/Luther’s approach and this description of lectio divina are easy to see. The Protestant thinkers agree that the Bible must be meditated on in order to engage the affections as a means to respond and pray to God with the whole person. They too want us to deliberately work the biblical truth into the heart until it “catches fire” and they believe the Holy Spirit can directly apply the inscripturated Word to our lives. But Owen and Luther do not advise that we ignore the theology of the text and look for a “personal word.” Luther actually proposes regular meditation on the Apostles’ Creed. Owen and Luther want us to think out the implications and applications of our doctrine and theology until the Holy Spirit makes the truths real in our affections. Second, Luther and Owen would not expect or advise that we only or mainly aim to know God’s love. Of course the knowledge of his love and grace in Christ must constantly be present, otherwise we would have no confidence that we could approach him at all. We pray only “in Jesus’ name.” But his power, holiness, majesty, sovereignty, or his wisdom could be the dominant theme of the biblical text rather than his love and therefore what we encounter that day. Finally, Owen and Luther would not say we are trying to get beyond thinking or thoughts into pure awareness. They assumed that the Scripture is the way God is actively present in the world and our lives and would not, again, pit thinking and feeling against each other as the contemplative tradition seems to do. Having registered all these criticisms, it is worth noting that the essential order of things Hall lays out—reading the Scripture (fixing the mind), meditating (inclining the heart), and prayer (enjoying God’s presence)—are roughly similar to both Owen and Luther’s directions. – Timothy Keller