Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth

Foster explores how Christian meditation offers a deep, personal encounter with God and stands apart from purely secular or Eastern practices. He notes that biblical figures like Isaac, the psalmists, and Jesus himself engaged in reflective, contemplative prayer, and he emphasizes that meditation involves both hearing God and responding in obedience. Foster describes how, through the Fall, human beings lost the natural communion they once had with God; nevertheless, Scripture and Christian tradition show that believers can reclaim this intimacy by listening for God’s living voice.

Foster distinguishes Christian meditation from approaches that focus solely on emptying the mind, clarifying that biblical meditation seeks to fill the mind with God’s presence and truth. He stresses that this discipline is for ordinary people, not merely spiritual elites, and that joy and transformation come from intentionally creating space for God to work within the heart. Throughout the chapter, he provides examples—such as meditating on Scripture, nature, and contemporary events—demonstrating that meditation brings divine insight into everyday situations.

Foster also addresses misconceptions. For instance, some see meditation as impractical, overly difficult, or merely psychological. By pointing to historical and modern Christian voices, he affirms that God can sanctify and use the imagination to reveal deeper realities.