Apr 26, 2020

226 In God I Trust and am not Afraid A Guided Christian Meditation on Psalms 56:10-13

I'm Chaplain Jared and I work as a hospice chaplain and an ICU chaplain, my purpose in making this podcast is to help you find more peace in your life and to be more open for your heart to be changed by the Spirit of God.  By using centuries old form of Christian Meditation named Lectio Divina:

Outline: Relaxation, Reading, Meditation, Prayer, Contemplation and Visualization.

Get into a place where you can sit comfortably and uninterrupted for about 20 minutes.You should hopefully not be driving or anything tensing or unrelaxing.  If you feel comfortable to do so, I invite you to close your eyes.

Guided Relaxation / Guided Meditation:

Breathe and direct your thoughts to contacting God. Let your stomach be a balloon inflate, deflate.

Bible verses for Meditation:

Psalms 56
NIV
10 In God, whose word I praise,
    in the Lord, whose word I praise—
11 in God I trust and am not afraid.
    What can man do to me?
12 I am under vows to you, my God;
    I will present my thank offerings to you.
13 For you have delivered me from death
    and my feet from stumbling,
that I may walk before God
    in the light of life.

NABRE
10 My foes turn back when I call on you.
    This I know: God is on my side.
11 I praise the word of God,
    I praise the word of the Lord.
12 In God I trust, I do not fear.
    What can man do to me?
13 I have made vows to you, God;
    with offerings I will fulfill them,
14 For you have snatched me from death,
    kept my feet from stumbling,
That I may walk before God
    in the light of the living.

Meditation on Scripture:

This week I have been struggling with stress with a particular thing I was working on. Perhaps you can identify with that at some point in your life. I am not new to stress and I am not new to trusting in God, yet in this case I really struggled working through the worry that things would not turn out. I knew that I should trust in the Lord and I knew that God would watch out for me and love me. I knew that in his eyes things were fine and would turn out alright. Yet despite what I knew in my head and I have experienced the peace of God so often in my life I knew of it as a reality. Yet for some reason I was struggling in this case. Sometimes I have seen people get down on themselves when they struggle with an emotional experience. Especially when I have a long streak of success with stress I forget that it is not the default position. It takes intentionality to let go of human neurotic worries. We can practice this and be gentle with ourselves as we work on coming back to peace. 

There despite whatever action I took I continued to feel stress. I did have the distinct impression that God could help me draw near to him through this struggle and I came to believe that. I had prayed and pleaded with the Lord to provide me feelings of peace and guide my actions. At that point I remember not feeling it. Similar to this the Psalmist called out to God in support from real stress. I remember not getting the answer of peace I was seeking, yet I continued to pour my heart out to God. Days past and I continued to struggle. I listened to my own podcast episodes to help me get to sleep at night which helped but when I awoke it continued. Then, at one specific moment that I can still visualize it came. God sent his peace into my heart in one specific moment. The sudden onset of the peace let me know with certainty it came from God. I was grateful. Since then when this worry has tried to creep back into my heart I can remember the peace that God sent and it returns. This peace is a gift from God that we do not get to control. Glory to God for the gift of His peace. 

Meditation of Prayer:

Pray as directed by the Spirit.

Dedicate these moments to the patient waiting, when you feel ready ask God for understanding you desire from Him.

Meditation of God and His Glory / Hesychasm:

I invite you to sit in silence feeling being patient for your own faults and trials.

Summarize what insights you have gained during this meditation and meditate and visualize positive change in your life:
This is a listener funded podcast at patreon.com/christianmeditationpodcast

Updates:

Final Question: When was a time when God sent you his peace?

Final Thought: I hope that as you make gentle yet profound and positive steps toward drawing nearer to God spirit of peace that you don’t feel failure or judgement if you at times struggle to feel that. I have talked to people who struggle to feel that consistently. It would be pure pride to argue that your or my experience with peace are somehow related to superior performance, yet there are things we can do consistently to attempt to invite that spirit of peace into our lives. My hope and prayer is that together we can work on those things as we invite God’s word and spirit into our lives and then pour out gratitude on Him when we experience them. 

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