If your podcast app is set to skip the silent sections, disable that in your podcast app for this podcast.
Psalm 16:8-9 NIV
Just imagine being alone right now with the Lord of Heaven and Earth, who rules over every detail in your life. “Not even a sparrow falls to the ground apart from the care of your Heavenly Father,” Jesus says in Matthew 10:29, “and he has numbered the very hairs of your head.” Jesus’s point was the same as Psalm 118:1, that you can trust in his goodness and his steadfast love for you right now. He rules over everything in his entire universe, and he is right there at your right hand — Imagine this.
Your entire body resting secure in the love and care of your Father in heaven.
In biblical meditation, you’re intentionally focusing your thoughts and using the power of your imagination to experience the reality of God's presence and promises in your life. In addition to that, what we want to do in this meditation is mentally reintegrate our body with our soul. In modern society we live these bifurcated lives where our soul is often mentally disconnected from our awareness of and spiritual health of our body. Our bodies need spiritual health. They are part of our soul. When we are not doing well spiritually it affects our bodies. When this happens, we can store stress and anxiety in our body but our mind is not aware of it. King David talks about this a lot in the Psalms, like Psalm 38. In this meditation, we want to reintegrate our body/mind/spirit connection by using our biblically guided imagination to bring spiritual rejuvenation and strength to our whole being — mind and body as a whole. Embracing our whole body as an important part of who we are. And that way we can sense when we have stress and anxiety and insecurity and deal with it on the soul level.
John 17:23 (NIV)
Let’s make sure we slow down and really catch the amazing truth in Jesus‘s words — The God who created everything everywhere in the universe is in you by his Spirit — including your body — through Jesus.
How all this works is a mystery we’re not really gonna understand. But the Bible tells us this so we can imagine this truth and live empowered by it. Even in our bodies.
Luke 3:21-22 (ESV)
I [am] in them and you [are] in me — you …have loved them even as you have loved me.
If you have Jesus in you, and if, as Jesus says, God loves you even as the Father loved the Son, then this is what God says when he sees you! “You are my beloved child, with you I am well pleased!”
Henri Nouwen — reflecting on how often we read that Jesus would get away on a mountain top to be alone with God the Father
“Solitude is being with God and God alone. Is there any space for that in your life? Why is it so important that you are with God and God alone on the mountain top? It's important because it's the place in which you can listen to the voice of the One who calls you the beloved. To pray is to listen to the One who calls you ‘my beloved daughter,’ ‘my beloved son,’ ‘my beloved child.’ To pray is to let that voice speak to the center of your being, to your guts, and let that voice resound in your whole being. Who am I? I am the beloved. That's the voice Jesus heard when he came out of the Jordan River: ‘You are my beloved; on you my favor rests.’ And Jesus says to you and to me that we are loved as he is loved. That same voice is there for you. When you are not claiming that voice, you cannot walk freely in this world.”
Who can you share this podcast with? If you found this episode helpful, consider sharing it on social media or texting it to a friend you think might benefit from it.
Follow Dave Cover on Twitter @davecover
Follow A Bigger Life on Twitter @ABiggerLifePod
Our audio engineer is Diego Huaman.
This podcast is a ministry of The Crossing, a church in Columbia, Missouri, a college town where the flagship campus of the University of Missouri is located.