When I Meditate: Reclaiming a Key Facet of Prayer

Art Toalston has worked more than twenty-five years in Southern Baptist communications -- as an editor of Baptist Press (1992-present) and as a writer for the International Mission Board (1985-91). He also has worked ten years in newspaper journalism and education in Mississippi and Ohio.

After being raised in a United Presbyterian church in northeastern Ohio, Art converted to Catholicism as a young adult and later was baptized in a Christian and Missionary Alliance church. After moving to Mississippi in 1977, he joined a Southern Baptist church. Art holds a Master of Arts degree in journalism from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and has studied at Bowling Green State University in Ohio; Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Texas; Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Virginia; and Wesley Biblical Seminary in Mississippi.

He is the author of three upcoming books on prayer and meditation, Meditation & Morality, Pray As Never Before, and Your Soul on Scripture, and of Lamp Unto My Feet: A Verse-A-Day Devotional (HarperSanFrancisco, 1997) in which 365 Christian leaders share the Scriptures that have guided their lives.

Recounting how his life has been changed by prayer and meditation rooted in Scripture memorization/internalization, Art states, "I have been memorizing Scripture since around 2000, stirred to do so by a speaker at church. I started with the fruit of the Spirit, Galatians 5:22-23, and have since focused on several new passages a year, about 75 in all, ranging from one verse to multiple verses. When they have slipped from memory, I have re-memorized them, repeating the process numerous times. As various realizations came to mind during times of prayer, I wrote down as many as I could, yearning to share these gleanings with others. While new birth began an extraordinary transformation of my life when I trusted Christ in my early twenties, each Scripture now is making my relationship to God all the more wondrous."