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 Christian Meditation with Ephesians 3:16-19
27:43 | 03-31-2022
What we want to do in Christian meditation is let go of anxiety not only as a relaxation technique but as something where we are truly calm and at rest because we sense and feel the presence and love and care of God in our lives. Anxiety over shadows our awareness of God because it hijacks all our emotional attention. This means that anxiety can be an early detection system that we’re depending on something other than God for our well-being. As we discussed in our last episode, often when we come to the Bible and read it without envisioning its truth with our imagination, we miss a lot of its transcendent wonders that only imagination can experience. There are certain biblical passages that are so full of spiritual realities we won’t be able to understand unless we experience them with our imagination. What Paul called the eyes of your heart. Ephesians 3:16-19 (NIV) 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord‘s people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge —that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. This is almost ALL imagery. Imagination. A reality we must use the eyes of our heart to experience. Say quietly to yourself… “I am strengthened today because the Holy Spirit is in my inner being.“ “My body and my life is rooted and established in Christ’s love for me today.“ 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 https://twitter.com/davecover (@davecover) Follow A Bigger Life on Twitter https://twitter.com/abiggerlifepod (@ABiggerLifePod) Our audio engineer is Diego Huaman. This podcast is a ministry of https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/ (The Crossing), a church in Columbia, Missouri, a college town where the flagship campus of the University of Missouri is located.
A Christian Meditation with Ephesians 1:17-18
29:38 | 03-29-2022
When we come to the Bible and read it without envisioning its truth with our imagination, we miss a lot of its transcendent wonders that only imagination can experience. Biblical authors thought the ancient Jewish way; through images and story. We tend to read and learn in a way that focuses on propositional truths rather than images and story. We’re looking to understand certain truths and we focus on trying to understand that and we have various questions about that rather than using our imagination to envision the images and the story that the Jewish authors are seeing in their mind when they write. There are certain biblical passages that are so full of spiritual realities we don’t understand that sometimes the best way to understand them is to experience them with our imagination. What Paul called the eyes of your heart. Ephesians 1:17-18 (NIV) I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people… God has already given us his Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19). But in another sense there are certain blessings that the Spirit gives after we already have the Spirit. These are things we pray for for ourselves and for others. As Paul prays here. In this Christian meditation, we’re using our biblically guided imagination to re-narrate our hopes and desires, as well as our bodies, back in line with the promise of the gospel. 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 https://twitter.com/davecover (@davecover) Follow A Bigger Life on Twitter https://twitter.com/abiggerlifepod (@ABiggerLifePod) Our audio engineer is Diego Huaman. This podcast is a ministry of https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/ (The Crossing), a church in Columbia, Missouri, a college town where the flagship campus of the University of Missouri is located.
A Christian Meditation with John 1:1-5
20:56 | 03-24-2022
This kind of meditation helps you re-integrate your mind and body with the reality of God as your creator and sustainer who is always with you and always focused on you with his infinite love. It relieves tension and anxiety and stress and insecurity and defensiveness stored up in your body. And it replaces all that with God‘s peace and joy and assurance and security. In today’s meditation we’re going to remind ourselves that when we meditate on the presence of God — when we meditate on the presence of Jesus in us and with us by his Spirit — we are using our imagination to see reality and to place our entire selves — including our whole body — in surrendered submission before our life-giving, light-giving Creator. We used this verse as part of our meditation in our last episode. Let’s remind ourselves of it again here. Psalms 33:6 (NIV) By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth. Imagine the power and intelligence and wisdom! John 1:1-5 (NIV) In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:14 (NIV) The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. Imagine this reality. The Jesus that walked this earth and died on the cross and rose from the dead is the same Jesus who spoke the universe into existence and gives life to all life! And he came to die for you. The God that created this universe, somehow in the paradox of how he works, infinitely loves you enough to become human to die for you and rise from the dead for you so that he can bring eternal life to your body and soul and bring you into his restored creation with a restored body and mind and soul forever! Imagine this! Feel this truth in your body right now. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. This includes YOU. Imagine this reality. Jesus giving you life. Imagine this right now. 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 https://twitter.com/davecover (@davecover) Follow A Bigger Life on Twitter https://twitter.com/abiggerlifepod (@ABiggerLifePod) This podcast is a ministry of https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/ (The Crossing), a church in Columbia, Missouri, a college town where the flagship campus of the University of Missouri is located.
A Christian Meditation with Psalm 33:6
30:57 | 03-22-2022
In today’s meditation we’re going to remind ourselves that when we meditate on the presence of God — who is in us and with us by his Spirit — we are using our imagination to see and place our entire selves — including our whole body — in surrendered submission before our life-giving, light-giving Creator. Neuroplasticity. Neurons that fire together wire together. Neuroplasticity is an amazing thing. Our brains/bodies have the ability to become astonishingly good at extraordinary things with enough practice. Repeated behaviors, words, experiences, and thoughts actually create new synapses (pathways) between neurons in the brain — literally changing the internal wiring of our brains. This happens much quicker in the brain when we were younger, but it continues to happen even as we grow older. This is how humans develop the ability for language. When you’ve grown up speaking a language, you often don’t even have to think about finding the right words and using the right grammar and syntax. It’s just automatic. It’s been wired into your brain and actually changed your brain so that you even think in that language without thinking about it. Because of neural plasticity, you can skillfully repeat actions you need to do often. This is what musicians experience when they practice scales. The more hours they practice the more second nature it becomes to play just the right musical notes blazingly fast. It’s almost as if the fingers do the music automatically without them having to really think much about it. Neurons that fire together wire together. Just as the brain/body can become skillful at repeated behaviors like language or guitar or piano playing or even a golf swing with a lot of practice (we call this muscle memory but it’s really just neural plasticity physically changing the brain/body connection), … this same phenomenon can also become really good at automatic Brain body connections that produce internal reactions of stress and anxiety and insecurity when practiced enough. When you have tension and anxiety for repeated periods of time, even if you’re unaware of it, your brain and body inadvertently “practice” it and create large neural pathways so that your brain/body is skillful at internally being stressed, anxious, insecure. Your brain is wired — literally changed — so that it becomes easier to get stressed and anxious. But you may not cognitively be aware of it. This is one reason why we wanna do this kind of meditation on a daily basis. It puts us cognitively in touch with our body. Neurons that fire together wire together. The longer you practice unchecked anxiety, the more you create and use and deepen the “anxiety pathway” in your brain. Stress, tension, insecurity, a disposition of defensiveness, same thing. The more you use this pathway, the bigger and stronger it gets. The stronger this pathway gets, the better your brain gets at producing more anxiety, more stress, more tension, more insecurity, more defensiveness, even in situations that wouldn’t have produced it before! Neurons that fire together wire together. God’s created reality of neural plasticity can be very helpful to us in developing positive change in our life, and it can be very unhelpful to us if we allow ourselves to think and practice destructive words, thoughts and actions. This is one reason why we’re doing this kind of body awareness WITH biblically guided meditation. Neurons that fire together wire together. We’re firing neurons together to rewire our brain so that whenever we give attention to our body — feel our body — learn to feel signs of tension and stress and anxiety and insecurity in our body — when we fire those neurons, at the same time other neurons wired to that practice of feeling our body from within will also fire and remind us to be aware of God’s presence and love. The more you practice this kind of meditation, each time you bring your mind‘s awareness to feel...
A Christian Meditation with Psalm 31:14-16
31:27 | 03-17-2022
It seems like there's always something to worry about in our lives. Even when things are going pretty well, we all know that is a precarious window that could shatter at any moment. It seems like one of the guaranteed rhythms of life is that there are good times and then there are going to be difficult times we have to go through. Exciting times. Painful times. Times when it seems everything is sunny. And then super disappointing times. And then long stretches of time when we're not sure which way things are going to go. That's life in this exiled world waiting for Heaven to come back to earth when Jesus returns. But the entire message of the Bible tells us that we can have an anchor of certainty in the rhythms of life's uncertainties. And until we find that anchor we're going to be tossed up and down with every next big wave. We see this in the life of David in the OT, which is one big reason why his psalms (meditation poems/songs) have been so important in the lives of God’s people (including Jesus) for 3,000 years. In one particularly painful and stressful time in his life, he and his 600 soldiers were away from their families and, upon returning, discovered that their enemies had burned their homes and kidnapped their families. 1 Samuel 30:4 (NIV) So David and his men wept aloud until they had no strength left to weep. And his men had almost turned against him for it. 1 Samuel 30:6 (NIV) David was greatly distressed because the men were talking of stoning him; each one was bitter in spirit because of his sons and daughters. But David found strength in the LORD his God. Phrases like that in the Bible should stick out to us as important doors for us to walk through that give us the key to how to live in this world. "But David found strength in the LORD his God.” This is what Christian meditation is/does. It is a way for us to find strength in the LORD our God. Continue to focus on your breathing/relaxing rhythm while I read from one of David’s psalms. There is a psalm David wrote (don’t know if it was this occasion)… Psalms 31:9-10 (NIV) …I am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and body with grief. …My strength fails because of my affliction, and my bones grow weak. David brings into his meditation the effect of stress and anxiety on his body. Let’s do that in our meditation today. Give attention right now to the present condition of your body; your mood, thoughts, emotions, fears, and feelings as they are right now in the present. This is a way to inhabit your body fully. To feel the body from within. Body awareness keeps you present with whatever message your body is getting from your brain. The first step in noticing anxiety is to pay attention to how it manifests in your body. Anxiety generally starts in either a distracted mind (ruminating on a past conflict or hurt; or an anger fantasy about the future), a racing heart, or a clenched body (tension). So let’s put our attention on different parts of our body to be aware of any signs of anxiety or tension and then begin the process of relaxing clenched muscles and distracted thoughts by a meditation where we can find strength in the LORD our God. Your soul is inseparable to your body. Everything is intertwined. …Your brain and body are inextricably interconnected. So in David’s moment of great stress and anxiety, “David was greatly distressed…But David found strength in the LORD his God.” Your English translation of the Hebrew says David found strength in the LORD, but the LORD is a kind of translation of God’s name in the Hebrew Bible — Yahweh. It’s translated in your Bible as LORD in all capital letters so you know the author or speaker is referring to God by his Hebrew name — Yahweh. This is actually the most often used reference for God (in the Old Testament) in the Hebrew Bible — far more than the word God is...
A Christian Meditation with Psalm 139
28:59 | 03-15-2022
We’re not always aware of our anxiety. Anxiety is not necessarily a sense of fear or worry. Sometimes it’s just a low-grade self-protection alarm going off that we don’t necessarily notice. But it always manifests itself in our body even if we’re not aware of it. Steve Cuss (author of Managing Leadership Anxiety) He says that the first step in noticing anxiety is to pay attention to how it manifests in your body. Anxiety generally starts in either a racing mind, a spinning heart, or a tightening body (clenched, tension). Let’s put our attention on different parts of our body to be aware of any tension and relax clenched muscles. This kind of meditation helps you become aware of signs of anxiety in your body and replace it by recalibrating your mind/body with the reality of God’s intimate presence and intense love for you. Again, Steve Cuss says that anxiety is a signal to us that we have lost awareness of God’s presence and love for us. He says you cannot have an anxious thought AND awareness of God’s presence and love at the same time. So let’s become more aware of the tension in our body right now, and relax and release it by becoming more aware of God‘s presence and love for us. This is meditation. Psalm 139 was written by David (and written by God’s Spirit for us to meditate on). Praying to God, David says… Psalms 139:2-14 (NIV) You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. 4 Before a word is on my tongue you, LORD, know it completely. …6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. 7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? Now imaginary extremes to make the point… 8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. 9 …if I settle on the far side of the sea, 10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. Then David meditates on how much God intimately loves him — even his very body that he created… 13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. God created YOU. And loves every cell in your body. Embrace your whole body as beloved by God — an important part of you. Who you are. You are your body. This is why biblical salvation includes the resurrection of your body when Jesus returns. A body restored to eternal beauty and glory and righteousness and eternal life. This is why consciously reconnecting your soul/mind with your body — mentally inhabiting your body from within — feeling your whole body — the life energy of your entire body — is an important way to relax tension and anxiety in your body by experiencing God’s presence and love through biblically guided imagination. John Mark Comer (The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry) …In the chronic problem of human beings’ felt experience of distance from God, God isn’t usually the culprit. God is omnipresent—there is no place God is not. And no time he isn’t present either. 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. Let’s continue to meditate on David’s meditation in Ps 139… Psalms 139:16-18 (NIV) Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. 17 How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 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?...
A Christian Meditation with Psalm 42:8
21:30 | 03-10-2022
Biblically guided meditation imagines the unseen realities of God as your Source of Life and Love and Joy and Peace, and speaks these realities to your soul – body, mind, and spirit — your whole self. Jesus says in Matthew 6:6, “...When you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen.” Imagine you and God together in the present. The I AM is always infinitely present with you. Imagine you are alone with the I AM who created the entire universe! Let Jesus' words bring the reality of God’s comforting love and peace-giving presence alive using your biblically guided imagination. Jesus said, “When you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen.” Imagine this reality that Jesus is telling you. Envision your entire body in the peace and love and care and the presence of the I AM — of your Father who is unseen but 100% alone with you. One definition of prayer is an intentional awareness of God’s presence. His glory. His love. His faithfulness. Jesus says, When you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Psalm 42:8 NIV By day the LORD directs his love, at night his song is with me — a prayer to the God of my life. This is the psalmist’s meditation. Use it to see this reality with your biblically guided imagination, and use that imagination to feel this reality in your whole body. By day the LORD directs his love, at night his song is with me — a prayer to the God of my life. When it says the LORD, that’s translating the Hebrew name for God — Yahweh — which is Hebrew for HE IS. Always in the present tense. He is always with you. We always meet God in the present. That’s where he always is with us. Right now God is with you and right now he is directing his love toward you. He is the God of your life. He gives life to every cell in your body. He is the source of all being. He is the giver of all life. And you exist because he gives you life. And he gives you life and directs his love toward you right now — at every moment. He is always 100% in the present tense with you. Always present with you fully without being any less present anywhere else. He is the infinite I AM. By day the LORD directs his love, at night his song is with me — a prayer to the God of my life. He’s the God of your life. The psalms says, “at night his song is with me.” God sings love songs over you. In an OT prophecy about how Jesus will bring God’s redemption and restoration… Zephaniah 3:17 (NIV) “The LORD your God is with you, …He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.” Because of Jesus, God is always with you and he always takes great delight in you and rejoices over you with singing. Because of Jesus, the forever God is your God forever who forever sings his love songs over you. Anxiety and bodily awareness of God’s love and presence cannot exist at the same time. Neither can insecurity. He’s the God of your life. Say quietly to yourself… “Because I have Jesus, the forever God is the God of my life forever. I am safe. I am not in danger. He is the God of my life Who is always directing his love toward 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 https://twitter.com/davecover (@davecover) Follow A Bigger Life on Twitter https://twitter.com/abiggerlifepod (@ABiggerLifePod) This podcast is a ministry of https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/ (The Crossing), a church in Columbia, Missouri, a college town where the flagship campus of the University of Missouri is located.
A Christian Meditation with Psalm 48:9
19:53 | 03-08-2022
Psalm 139 says God intimately and lovingly created every part of your body. Your body is a good creation of God. Yes, we are all in a kind of exile in a fallen creation in bondage to death and decay. And that’s true of our body. But it’s also true that God has an eternal purpose for the redemption of your body (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%208%3A23&version=NIV (Rom 8:23)). There will be a resurrection and transformation of your body when Jesus returns (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Philippians%203%3A20-21&version=NIV (Phil 3:20-21)). So God even now fully inhabits your body by his Spirit. Remember 1 Cor 6:19 — “your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you.” Which means that Jesus has already made your body holy in his sight. Just think about that for a minute – your body is a holy temple of the Holy Spirit. God loves your body so much that he wants to reside there right now. In this present moment. Feel the “life energy” that God’s Spirit, God’s breath, God’s power gives to every cell in your body as intensely as you can. God is the source of all existence and the giver of all life. This means all life – including every living cell in your body. God right now is giving life to every living cell in your body. He is present with that cell. 100% aware of that cell. And that cell gets its very life from God’s Spirit. This is true for everybody whether they realize it or not. But let’s take some time to meditate on this and feel this truth right now using your biblically guided imagination. Psalms 48:9 (NIV) Within your temple, O God, we meditate on your unfailing love. 1 Cor 6:19 gives this meditation a whole new meaning…“your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you.” As we meditate on God’s unfailing love within the new temple of his Spirit, our body made holy by Jesus, let your attention run through your entire body like a wave of imagination and meditation. Feel your whole body in its totality, as a whole body filled with God’s life-giving Spirit and God’s unfailing love. Within your temple, O God, we meditate on your unfailing love. Feel the “life energy” that God’s Spirit, God’s breath, God’s power, God’s unfailing love gives to every cell in your body. Try to hold that feeling. Be mentally present in your attention to every part, every cell of your body. This is to embrace and inhabit your God-created, God-inhabited body fully. To feel your body from within, so to speak. Total body awareness — using your imagination — helps you embrace your body — recalibrate your body — with the reality of God’s life-giving power and presence and unfailing love. God is always with you and looking at you with unfailing love. The forever God is your God forever because of his unfailing — eternal — love for you that’s always directed toward you in Christ. Say quietly to yourself… “I am calm and at rest in God‘s unfailing love for 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 https://twitter.com/davecover (@davecover) Follow A Bigger Life on Twitter https://twitter.com/abiggerlifepod (@ABiggerLifePod) This podcast is a ministry of https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/ (The Crossing), a church in Columbia, Missouri, a college town where the flagship campus of the University of Missouri is located.
A Christian Meditation with Galatians 5:22
32:26 | 03-03-2022
We wake up from dreams we don’t remember but often they have put anxiety, insecurity and anger in our hearts and in our bodies. That’s one reason I personally do this meditation first thing in the morning. I also do it at the end of my work day. That’s about 45 minutes. But I’d rather spend 45 minutes recalibrating my mind and my body on God’s presence through meditation than watching another 45 minutes of TV or scrolling through social media. And it makes a noticeable difference in my emotional and spiritual and physical wellbeing. (If your podcast app is set to skip over silent sections, disable that now for this podcast) Let’s begin by lying/sitting/you could be walking in nature. Breathe/Exhale/Awareness of your body’s tension (relax it more with each exhale). Try to mentally inhabit your body fully. To always have some of your attention in the inner condition of your body. To feel your body from within, so to speak. Body awareness reconnects your body to your mind/soul. Just do that for a minute while I say some things about meditation using biblically guided imagination… The Bible is filled with as much (if not more) imagery than it is straight propositional truth. The images are meant to appeal to our imagination. Our desires are driven by our imagination. Advertisers know this, of course, which is why most ads really aren't giving us information as much as imagination. Have this. Do this. Be this. So in meditation we want to use the images God gives us by his Spirit in his word — scripture — to help us see God with the eyes of our heart. And the more we do, through our biblically guided imagination, the more our hearts will desire him more than the false promises of sin that usually grab most of our imagination. One way to define prayer is awareness of and connection to God in our mind and in our bodies. Continue to focus on breathing deeply and being aware of and relaxing your whole body with each exhale… Let’s specifically focus on a few areas where we typically hold our tension and stress. Christian meditation focuses you on biblical imagery showing how you — your body — utterly depend upon God’s life-giving Spirit at every moment. Paul says, “In him we live and move and have our being” (Act 17:28). Of course most people don’t realize this or think of themselves this way, and even WE live our lives often ignoring God. But regardless whether we acknowledge it or not, it’s God who gives us life at every moment we’re alive. Every cell in our body. Continue to focus on breathing deeply and being aware of and relaxing your whole body with each exhale… Let’s recalibrate our mind and body to reality by imagining this reality and experiencing it in meditation. Imagine every cell in your body being given its life by God’s Spirit. This imagery can bring relaxation and relieve stress from your body. Let’s meditate on the imagery of… Ephesians 5:18 — “Be filled with the Spirit.” It’s an amazing thing to think – the God that created this universe is in me! In my body. The life-giving, universe-creating power of the Spirit of God is in me! I want his power to fill me! Fill every cell in my body! Continue to focus on breathing deeply and being aware of and relaxing your whole body with each exhale… Let’s imagine that now as we focus on a few more areas where we typically hold our tension and anxiety in our body. Your body is filled with God’s Spirit — No fear. No insecurity. No threat. Let’s meditate on the imagery of… Galatians 5:22-23 ESV …The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, [and] self-control. (This is what true holiness is.) Continue to focus on breathing deeply and being aware of and relaxing your whole body with each exhale… When you have God’s Spirit in you, then this is how God is toward YOU — loving, joyful, peace, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle....
A Christian Meditation with John 17:23
17:39 | 03-01-2022
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 mentally disconnected from our awareness of our body. When this happens, we can store stress and anxiety in our body but our mind is not aware of it. In this meditation, we want to reintegrate our soul by bringing our mind to a better awareness of our whole being — mind and body as a whole. Embracing our whole body with our mind 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. Of course, when you do try to meditate this way, you’ll discover that it’s hard to do. Your mind will wander into other imaginations. Other stories. This is normal so don’t get frustrated with yourself when it happens. This is why this podcast is helpful. Try to focus your mind on what’s being said and if you find that your mind has wandered. No worries. Just rejoin us. But first, if your podcast app is set to skip silent sections, disable that now. To begin… Lie flat on your back …or sit comfortably in a chair. You might want to close your eyes so you can focus your thoughts and imagination better. Try to be in a place without a lot of lights and loud sounds. Begin to take in slow, deep, relaxing breaths through your nose. As you exhale, focus your mind on relaxing your body a little more with each breath. This kind of breathing has been shown to signal to your brain that you’re calm and at ease. Each time you breathe and relax, you’ll find that you can even relax a little more with your next exhale. There’s always a little more tension in your body that you can let go of with each breath. Continue with this kind of relaxed, deep breathing all throughout this meditation. Let’s take a moment now to focus on this kind of breathing and relaxing to put your body in good disposition for meditation. Feel the weight of your body more and more as you feel gravity pulling your body a little more with each breath. While you’re focusing on this kind of breathing, let me read a verse on something amazing Jesus said in his prayer to the Father in… John 17:23 (NIV) I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. The God who created everything everywhere in the universe is in you — including your body — through Jesus. Remember the two verses from our previous episode that said… Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God. …God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to you. While you’re breathing and relaxing, meditate on this reality Jesus describes, using your imagination to feel in your body and to experience the Father being in Jesus and Jesus being in you. In the second part of that verse in Jesus’s prayer he says… you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. A lot of the tension and stress in your body is due to anxiety and worry and insecurity that would be alleviated if you truly felt that your Heavenly Father loves you just as much as he loves Jesus. But Jesus says that exactly true because Jesus is IN you. His righteousness is IN you. Everything that makes Jesus the perfect human perfectly accepted before God the Father is IN you. So after Jesus came out of the water when he was baptized, it says in… Mark 1:11 (NIV) And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” If you have Jesus in you, and if, as Jesus says, God loves you even as the Father loved the Son, then...