With all of the access we have to information in our world, we have no shortage of things to think about. I can watch television programs that teach me how to prepare food or remodel my home. I can find scores and statistics from sporting events on the other side of the world with just a click on my computer. Or I can discover where my favorite actor lives and whom he is currently dating.

Because I have access to so much information, my thoughts can be stimulated by almost any whim. It is easy for me to obsess about things that are rather insignificant.

One of the classic spiritual disciplines that may be valuable today is the practice of meditation. We might think of meditation as a mystical practice that causes people to enter a trance-like condition. It seems so different from anything we do in our normal routines.

But meditation is not a practice that is only for spiritual mystics. In the Old Testament the word for "meditate" refers to talking to oneself. When we meditate, we set our thoughts beyond the trivial minutia of our whims, and we consider God's place in our lives.

Meditation helps us keep our thought-lives clear of the distractions that the world throws at us, and it helps us set our minds on the greater thoughts of God's plans and purposes.