Meditation before action

I have a friend who is a deeply spiritual person. He spends quite a bit of time each day in focused thinking, quiet time and meditation. He freely shares the conclusion that some of his best and most productive thoughts come out of these times. While he is not a practicing religious person, he recognizes the importance of getting in touch with something greater than himself. Often those of us who more strictly observe a religious faith act as if we must always be speaking our creed, living our virtues or demonstrating our goodwill through assertiveness.

While faith without action certainly bears little fruit, action without a proper amount of reflection on what motivates it can often lead us into acting before we are mentally prepared for the consequences. Before the support group I am a member of begins its meetings, we pause for a moment of silence or sanity to collect our individual thoughts before embarking on our discussion. This is not a poor practice before we begin our worship or our service for God.

Pause. It only takes a few moments to stop and think and to consider the various paths that lay before us. Each time we take up something new for God we ought to consider who God is, who we are and what God is going to accomplish through us.

Philippians 4:8,

-Will