Many people often wonder what the difference between meditation and prayer really is, or whether or not one could follow Jesus and still meditate. Of course you can meditate and still follow Jesus! People who don’t understand meditation often think it’s about “emptying your mind” but that isn’t what it is at all. Meditation is about noticing what it is like to exist as who you are as a human being, prayer is about keeping and growing in your relationship to the Most High.
Prayer As A Spiritual Foundation
“Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” - Philippians 4:6-7
Praying is the cornerstone of your connection to the Most High because without communicating with Him you will not be able to grow in your spirit.
Fleeing Temptation and Professing Love For God
To participate in prayer is also to profess your love for Jesus and your sins, transgressions, or iniquities. Keeping it as practical as possible, sin is doing wrong for your well-being or another’s well-being intentionally or unintentionally; transgression is doing something that you know is wrong but are fighting the temptation to do so and give into the temptation; and iniquity is straight up knowing something is wrong and doing it anyway.
Prayerful Repentance
When we pray, we also can repent. Repentance is important because we recognize our own wrongs in the eyes of the Most High and we take accountability for it. Taking accountability for your sins, transgressions, and iniquities will clear any negative spiritual residue from you.
Meditation Comes After Prayer As A Spiritual Calibration
I’ve meditated each day for 6 years, and it wasn’t until I began to follow Christ nearly 3 years ago that my meditation experiences began to be formidably more grounding than the previous 3 years. As soon as prayer became a part of my life, my meditations got much more simplistic - like my feet were “on the ground” but my spirit was “lifted a few inches above the ground.”
This showed me that meditation is more like the fine-tuning of the spirit. It is as if meditation is the tuning of the instrument that is the spirit and prayer is the strings on the instrument of the spirit.