Resolving Conflict Putting it All Together

Confession and mourning go together. Mourning is really another way of saying meditation, which is such a forgotten art in circles of believers, especially today when we're used to soundbites. Do you know how short the soundbites are now? Isn't it amazing to watch the news where they'll talk about something very important just like that. If you really want to say something that people can really base your point of view on, you've got to say something but audiences are used to things being distilled down, watered down, shallow thinking. This has begun to permeate our culture. For growth in grace, God has to go deep in your heart to bring life change and you have to spend time meditating. Biblically, meditation is something that is clearly a key part of the Christian life. To meditate is to ruminate. We talked about how sheep eat their food and they keep chewing their food and they chew their food many times. It's because the chewing and the digestive process actually creates more protein than they get from the grass in the first place; more of the calories come from the chewing and salivating. It's kind of gross, but it's true. That's where the nutrients come, not from just the grass. We're sheep; we need to ruminate if we're going to have nourishment and so we're malnourished Christians if we're not meditating. So we go to the Lord and we open our Bibles and we're praying to the Lord and we're saying, "Lord, show me what's going on in this sinful heart."