Irritation | Wayfarer

…and I will meditate on your wonderful works.
Psalm 145:5b (NIV)

Meditate (med-i-teyt) v. to engage in thought or contemplation; to reflect.

Wendy and I have a great relationship, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t irritations with one another. You learn things about yourself in marriage as you, with all your unique quirks and foibles, enter into a 24/7/365 living arrangement with another person who has their own unique quirks and foibles.

One of the things I’ve learned about myself through Wendy’s irritation is that I have a penchant of getting so engaged in thought or contemplation about something that I virtually shut out the world around me. This happened again yesterday morning before we headed to worship. I was on the computer and engaged in a task. The computer was not working and I was myopically focused, angry expletives flying hither and thither, on successfully shutting down a rogue application that was freezing my computer. Apparently Wendy asked me multiple times about the problem I was having. She was just a few feet away, but I didn’t hear her and it had little or nothing to do with my hearing issues. I was so deeply focused on my computer issue that I shut everything else out around me.

I thought about that little incident this morning as I read of David’s commitment to meditate on God’s wonderful works in Psalm 145. The discipline of focusing our mental energy and spending time in reflection is ultimately a good thing. The real question is the object of our meditation. Where do we concentrate our thoughts? What do we think about in the privacy of our heart and brain? Upon what do we reflect? I can easily lose myself in meditation upon silly things but often give less energy to meditation on eternal things.

This morning as I head out into a new work week, I’m contemplating my meditation and committing myself to be more aware of how I’m spending my mental energy. My goal this week is to engage more in reflection on worthy things and catch myself before I get too focused on things that ultimately don’t matter.