This is a biblically guided meditation and relaxation to use any time you need to relieve stress and tension in your body and refocus and rest into God’s presence and promises. Important: If your podcast app is set to skip silent sections of the podcast, disable that now. We want to use silence as part of our meditation. You can flag these episodes on biblically guided meditation and relaxation for you to return to over and over as needed. Each episode is a little different, so you may decide to favor one or two episodes as better for you. But give all of them a try. Meditation is as old as the Bible itself. Our secular culture is recently embracing the benefits of “mindfulness” and meditation for developing mental and physical health. But the Bible has been there all along, for thousands of years (see the show notes to the January 4 episode). Biblically guided meditation imagines the unseen realities of God as your Source of Life and Joy and Significance, and speaks these realities to your soul – your whole self. Meditation is a time to listen and to speak to your whole person, including your body. Psalm 42:5 NIV “Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God.” Biblically guided Imagination / meditation speaks God’s truth and implications to our “soul” — to our whole self – body and mind and spirit. The biblical concept of the soul is your whole self – body, mind, spirit. That’s why there must be a resurrection of the body for salvation. Your whole body is part of you. You are your body. Embrace your body. The psalmist was aware his “soul” was downcast and disturbed within him because he listened to his body, mind, spirit. Then his meditation was to speak the realities of God’s presence and promise to his “soul.” So biblically guided meditation focuses on the inseparable connection between our body, mind, and spirit. It helps you experience your connection with God even at the bodily/cellular level. This is a time for you to meditate and take in the comforting, peace-giving presence of the I AM. There'll be other times to do things. To fix things. Think about things. To work on things. To organize things. To talk to people. Plan things. You can do all that later. But for now put all that aside and focus all your thoughts on God being present with you 100% — focused on you 100% — without being any less present and any less focused anywhere else. He is the Giver of your life. The Source of comfort and peace. Shalom. To begin… Lie flat on your back or sit comfortably in a chair. Close your eyes. Try to relax your body by feeling the weight of every part of your body relaxing like falling water and being supported completely by whatever surface you’re on. Allow yourself to notice and feel how your body is supported. How you are being held from underneath. Your whole body is able to let itself be held. Begin to take in deep, slow breaths and with each exhale relax the muscles in your body a little bit more. Each slow, deep breath. Ezekiel 37:5-6 ESV “Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will …put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the LORD.” Psalm 104:30 NIV When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground. John 20:21-22 ESV Jesus said to them…“Peace be with you.” …And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Ephesians 5:18 — “Be filled with the Spirit.” Romans 15:13 — “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 6:19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? Job 33:4 (NIV) The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of