Christian Meditation for A Bigger Life with Pastor Dave Cover
Christian Meditation can help refocus your mind and recalibrate your body to get the stress, anxiety and anger out of your heart and out of your body. Spend about 23 minutes to "be still" with God as each episode uses a different biblical image to e...
Recent Episodes
A Meditation on Keeping God in Your Mental Foreground Instead of Background
22:51 | 01-19-2023
So this is not a podcast where you can multitask while you listen. I’m not trying to give you new information or things to consider like other podcasts. I love those kinds of podcasts. But in this podcast I’m wanting to give you an experience. I want you to learn to reintegrate your body with your mind’s awareness so that you can notice the “red flag” when you feel tension or anxiety in your body. It’s a red flag that you’re experiencing a vertical disconnect with God. And I want you to experience what a vertical connection feels like through envisioning the unseen reality of God’s presence in this moment and his presence in your body by his Holy Spirit.If your podcast app is set to skip the silent sections, disable that in your podcast app for this podcast.Revelation 4:11 (NIV)“You are worthy, our Lord and God,to receive glory and honor and power,for you created all things,and by your will they were createdand have their being.”Link to picture of a black vase or two white faces.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 @davecoverFollow A Bigger Life on Twitter @ABiggerLifePodOur 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.
A Meditation on Envisioning Christ Creating and Sustaining Your Body
20:35 | 01-17-2023
So this is not a podcast where you can multitask while you listen. I’m not trying to give you new information or things to consider like other podcasts. I love those kinds of podcasts. But in this podcast I’m wanting to give you an experience. I want you to learn to reintegrate your body with your mind’s awareness so that you can notice the “red flag” when you feel tension or anxiety in your body. It’s a red flag that you’re experiencing a vertical disconnect with God. And I want you to experience what a vertical connection feels like through envisioning the unseen reality of God’s presence in this moment and his presence in your body by his Holy Spirit.If your podcast app is set to skip the silent sections, disable that in your podcast app for this podcast.Acts 17:28In him we live and move and have our being. Acts 17:25 (NIV)He himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 1 Corinthians 8:6 (NIV)…There is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.Colossians 1:16-17 (NIV)For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, …all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.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 @davecoverFollow A Bigger Life on Twitter @ABiggerLifePodOur 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.
A Meditation on Envisioning God’s Infinite Thoughts Toward You in Psalm 139:17-18
23:15 | 01-12-2023
The purpose of Christian Meditation for A Bigger Life is to help 21st-century Christians in the always distracted digital age — to connect with God with your whole being — including your body — and to wire into your brain the reality of that embodied connection in each moment. And I think most of us as Christians are often living unconsciously anxious and tense lives with a kind of disconnection between our body and mind, and disconnection between our body and God’s Spirit. Where our “Christian faith” has become almost exclusively about certain beliefs rather than an embodied experience with God’s Spirit who is always 100% present with us and in us in the NOW. So this is not a podcast where you can multitask while you listen. I’m not trying to give you new information or things to consider like other podcasts. I love those kinds of podcasts. But in this podcast I’m wanting to give you an experience. I want you to learn to reintegrate your body with your mind’s awareness so that you can notice the “red flag” when you feel tension or anxiety in your body. It’s a red flag that you’re experiencing a vertical disconnect with God. And I want you to experience what a vertical connection feels like through envisioning the unseen reality of God’s presence in this moment and his presence in your body by his Holy Spirit.If your podcast app is set to skip the silent sections, disable that in your podcast app for this podcast.John Mark Comer (Ruthless Elimination of Hurry)“…In the chronic problem of human beings’ felt experience of distance from God, God isn’t usually the culprit. …Our awareness of God is the problem… …So many people live without a sense of God’s presence through the day. …But could it be that … we’re the ones who are absent, not God? We sit around sucked into our phones or TV or to-do lists, oblivious to the God who is around us, with us, in us, even more desirous than we are for relationship.”Psalms 139:17-18 (NIV) How precious to me are your thoughts, God!How vast is the sum of them!Were I to count them,they would outnumber the grains of sand —when I awake, I am still with you.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 @davecoverFollow A Bigger Life on Twitter @ABiggerLifePodOur audio engineer is Diego Huaman.
A Meditation on Envisioning Christ As the Source of Your Being
17:54 | 01-10-2023
The purpose of Christian Meditation for A Bigger Life is to help 21st-century Christians in the always distracted digital age — to connect with God with your whole being — including your body — and to wire into your brain the reality of that embodied connection in each moment. And I think most of us as Christians are often living unconsciously anxious and tense lives with a kind of disconnection between our body and mind, and disconnection between our body and God’s Spirit. Where our “Christian faith” has become almost exclusively about certain beliefs rather than an embodied experience with God’s Spirit who is always 100% present with us and in us in the NOW. So this is not a podcast where you can multitask while you listen. I’m not trying to give you new information or things to consider like other podcasts. I love those kinds of podcasts. But in this podcast I’m wanting to give you an experience. I want you to learn to reintegrate your body with your mind’s awareness so that you can notice the “red flag” when you feel tension or anxiety in your body. It’s a red flag that you’re experiencing a vertical disconnect with God. And I want you to experience what a vertical connection feels like through envisioning the unseen reality of God’s presence in this moment and his presence in your body by his Holy Spirit.If your podcast app is set to skip the silent sections, disable that in your podcast app for this podcast.C. S. Lewis, in The Screwtape Letters, has the demons protesting against silence as a great danger to their destructive cause in a Christian’s life. In it, senior demon Screwtape calls the devil’s realm a “Kingdom of Noise” and claims, “We will make the whole universe a noise in the end.” Blaise Pascal“All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.”It makes you think again of Jesus’s words in…Matthew 6:6 (NIV)“But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”Remember the quote from the apostle Paul in… Acts 17:28“In him we live and move and have our being.”Acts 17:25 (NIV)“…He himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.”1 Corinthians 8:6 (NIV)“…There is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.”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 @davecoverFollow A Bigger Life on Twitter @ABiggerLifePodOur 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.
A Meditation on God’s Infinite Intentional Intimate and Intricate Connection with Your Body in Psalm 139:13-14
26:22 | 01-05-2023
The purpose of Christian Meditation for A Bigger Life is to help 21st-century Christians in the always distracted digital age — to connect with God with your whole being — including your body — and to wire into your brain the reality of that embodied connection in each moment. And I think most of us as Christians are often living unconsciously anxious and tense lives with a kind of disconnection between our body and mind, and disconnection between our body and God’s Spirit. Where our “Christian faith” has become almost exclusively about certain beliefs rather than an embodied experience with God’s Spirit who is always 100% present with us and in us in the NOW. So this is not a podcast where you can multitask while you listen. I’m not trying to give you new information or things to consider like other podcasts. I love those kinds of podcasts. But in this podcast I’m wanting to give you an experience. I want you to learn to reintegrate your body with your mind’s awareness so that you can notice the “red flag” when you feel tension or anxiety in your body. It’s a red flag that you’re experiencing a vertical disconnect with God. And I want you to experience what a vertical connection feels like through envisioning the unseen reality of God’s presence in this moment and his presence in your body by his Holy Spirit.If your podcast app is set to skip the silent sections, disable that in your podcast app for this podcast.Psalm 139:13–15 ESV13 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.2 Corinthians 4:16–18 NIV16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. …18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.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 @davecoverFollow A Bigger Life on Twitter @ABiggerLifePodOur 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.
A Meditation on Seeing the Vertical Reality in Every Anxious Moment in Psalm 139:1-10
28:05 | 01-03-2023
So this is not a podcast where you can multitask while you listen. I’m not trying to give you new information or things to consider like other podcasts. I love those kinds of podcasts. But in this podcast I’m wanting to give you an experience. I want you to learn to reintegrate your body with your mind’s awareness so that you can notice the “red flag” when you feel tension or anxiety in your body. It’s a red flag that you’re experiencing a vertical disconnect with God. And I want you to experience what a vertical connection feels like through envisioning the unseen reality of God’s presence in this moment and his presence in your body by his Holy Spirit.If your podcast app is set to skip the silent sections, disable that in your podcast app for this podcast.Psalm 139:1–10 ESVMatthew 6:6 (NIV)But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.And he says your father who sees in secret will reward you. Reward in the Bible is often the language for God giving himself to us. Giving himself to us in a special way. He is our reward. Making his face shine upon us. Kind of like when James says draw near to God and he will draw near to you (James 4:8). God tells Abraham in Genesis 15:1, “Do not be afraid. I am your shield, your very great reward. 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 @davecoverFollow A Bigger Life on Twitter @ABiggerLifePodOur 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.
A Meditation on Tuning In to God’s Presence in Psalm 139:7-10
32:23 | 12-22-2022
The purpose of Christian Meditation for A Bigger Life is to help 21st-century Christians in the always distracted digital age — to connect with God with your whole being — including your body — and to wire into your brain the reality of that embodied connection in each moment. And I think most of us as Christians are often living unconsciously anxious and tense lives with a kind of disconnection between our body and mind, and disconnection between our body and God’s Spirit. Where our “Christian faith” has become almost exclusively about certain beliefs rather than an embodied experience with God’s Spirit who is always 100% present with us and in us in the NOW. So this is not a podcast where you can multitask while you listen. I’m not trying to give you new information or things to consider like other podcasts. I love those kinds of podcasts. But in this podcast I’m wanting to give you an experience. I want you to learn to reintegrate your body with your mind’s awareness so that you can notice the “red flag” when you feel tension or anxiety in your body. It’s a red flag that you’re experiencing a vertical disconnect with God. And I want you to experience what a vertical connection feels like through envisioning the unseen reality of God’s presence in this moment and his presence in your body by his Holy Spirit.If your podcast app is set to skip the silent sections, disable that in your podcast app for this podcast.Psalm 139:7–10 ESV7 Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? 8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! 9 If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, 10 even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.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 @davecoverFollow A Bigger Life on Twitter @ABiggerLifePodOur 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.
A Meditation on the Security of God’s Intimate Knowledge of You in Psalm 139:1-6
23:56 | 12-20-2022
The purpose of Christian Meditation for A Bigger Life is to help 21st-century Christians in the always distracted digital age — to connect with God with your whole being — including your body — and to wire into your brain the reality of that embodied connection in each moment. And I think most of us as Christians are often living unconsciously anxious and tense lives with a kind of disconnection between our body and mind, and disconnection between our body and God’s Spirit. Where our “Christian faith” has become almost exclusively about certain beliefs rather than an embodied experience with God’s Spirit who is always 100% present with us and in us in the NOW. So this is not a podcast where you can multitask while you listen. I’m not trying to give you new information or things to consider like other podcasts. I love those kinds of podcasts. But in this podcast I’m wanting to give you an experience. I want you to learn to reintegrate your body with your mind’s awareness so that you can notice the “red flag” when you feel tension or anxiety in your body. It’s a red flag that you’re experiencing a vertical disconnect with God. And I want you to experience what a vertical connection feels like through envisioning the unseen reality of God’s presence in this moment and his presence in your body by his Holy Spirit.If your podcast app is set to skip the silent sections, disable that in your podcast app for this podcast.Psalms 16:8-9 (NIV)I keep my eyes always on the LORD.With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;my body also will rest secure.Psalm 139:1–6 ESV1 O LORD, you have searched me and known me! 2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. 3 You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. 4 Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it altogether. 5 You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.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 @davecoverFollow A Bigger Life on Twitter @ABiggerLifePodOur audio engineer is Diego Huaman.
A Meditation on the Apostle John’s Poetic Picture of the Love of God in 1 John 4:7-16
28:42 | 12-15-2022
The purpose of Christian Meditation for A Bigger Life is to help 21st-century Christians in the always distracted digital age — to connect with God with your whole being — including your body — and to wire into your brain the reality of that embodied connection in each moment. And I think most of us as Christians are often living unconsciously anxious and tense lives with a kind of disconnection between our body and mind, and disconnection between our body and God’s Spirit. Where our “Christian faith” has become almost exclusively about certain beliefs rather than an embodied experience with God’s Spirit who is always 100% present with us and in us in the NOW. So this is not a podcast where you can multitask while you listen. I’m not trying to give you new information or things to consider like other podcasts. I love those kinds of podcasts. But in this podcast I’m wanting to give you an experience. I want you to learn to reintegrate your body with your mind’s awareness so that you can notice the “red flag” when you feel tension or anxiety in your body. It’s a red flag that you’re experiencing a vertical disconnect with God. And I want you to experience what a vertical connection feels like through envisioning the unseen reality of God’s presence in this moment and his presence in your body by his Holy Spirit.If your podcast app is set to skip the silent sections, disable that in your podcast app for this podcast.Psalm 138:8“Your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever.“1 John 4:7-16 (NIV)7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. [see Rom 5:8 and 2 Cor 5:21] 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 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 @davecoverFollow A Bigger Life on Twitter @ABiggerLifePodOur audio engineer is Diego HuamanThis 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.
A Meditation on the Stunning Image of Your Body As God’s Temple in 2 Chronicles 5:13-14
31:41 | 12-13-2022
If your podcast app is set to skip the silent sections, disable that in your podcast app for this podcast.When the NT says our body is God’s temple, for us that tends to go in one ear and out the other. But if we really understand the meaning/image of that, it will transform your view of not just your body but your whole life.While we discuss this, remember to continue your breathing and focus in part on feeling and relaxing your entire body.We have to go back to the OT to the first day of the temple…2 Chronicles 5:13-14 (NIV)“The trumpeters and musicians joined in unison to give praise and thanks to the LORD. Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals and other instruments, the singers raised their voices in praise to the LORD and sang:(ESV) ‘For he is good,for his steadfast love endures forever,’Then the temple of the LORD was filled with the cloud, 14 and the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the temple of God.” Dedication of the temple Solomon built. The temple in the OT was a physical presence of Heaven on Earth. But only priests who ceremonially consecrated their bodies could enter. At this dedication, God gave a visible sign of his presence in the temple, God’s physical presence on Earth. The temple was filled with the Holy Spirit (cloud) — “for the glory of the LORD filled the temple of God.” But because of Jesus’s physical, bodily birth, death, resurrection, and ascension, all those who look to him for their restoration/salvation experience the same thing OT priests did when they consecrated their body before entering God’s temple. That was foreshadowing symbolism of what Jesus would ultimately be and do for those who look to him. As the NT puts it in…1 Corinthians 6:11 (NIV)1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (ESV)Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.Now, “you are not your own” because you didn’t make yourself. But what this verse is saying is far more comforting than just that. It’s saying that YOU have been “bought” out of being lost to the thorns and thistles and dust and death and swept away to nothingness in the end. You’ve been “redeemed” by Christ’s body. Your body is now bought with the price of Christ’s body and you now belong again to your Creator forever. And NOW you — your body — is God’s presence on earth.Too often we adopt a very unbiblical and unchristian view of our body somehow being separate from, or at least unrelated to, our soul and our eternal connection with God. But the Bible teaches that your body is actually a vital part of your eternal AND present and intimate connection with God. Imagine/envision God 100% present IN you right now in this present moment. That’s what the Bible’s teachings are all about. Yahweh/Jesus present in your body in every present moment.And it is a presence in your very body, because the NT teaches that in this very moment Jesus by his Holy Spirit dwells in your body as his holy temple. Jesus’s death and resurrection redeemed you out of nothingness and into his house and his glory forever. You are not your own, thank God! YOU belong! And so you are never on your own. God’s Holy Spirit is within your body. Your body has the security of the ownership and protection of God now and forever. So God’s very presence and glory is within your body. Which is why you can experience God’s presence and glory in your body. 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 @davecoverFollow A Bigger Life on Twitter @ABiggerLifePodOur 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.