Experience Jesus in Guided Prayer
Learning to ground your nervous system in the presence of Jesus
“Understanding theological truths and concepts is important, but deep change occurs when we are positioned to experience what God has declared to be true.”
-Terry Wardle
This week on Faith & Feelings, I decided to wrap up our current podcast series by offering something a little different:
A guided time of prayer— called Imaginative Prayer—that can help us enter into a deeper experience of God. This form of contemplative prayer dates back the early church fathers and mothers. When we engage in this kind of prayer, we use our imaginations to place ourselves within a scene from Scripture, particularly in the life of Jesus.
Rather than simply analyzing the text, we engage our senses and emotions as we “enter into” the story and encounter God in a personal and relational way.
In other words, we allow the scene to unfold as if we’re walking onto the set of a movie, and we get curious with God…what do we notice? Who draws our attention? What emotions arise as we engage with the story and how might it intersect with our own lives? We trust in the Spirit’s direction as we connect to the details of the story. What do we see? Hear? Smell? Taste? Touch? And where in this story do we have a heightened emotional connection with Jesus?
I hope you'll join me as we walk onto the scene of Matthew 6:30-42, a passage I’ve been sitting in over the last few months, and ask the Spirit to speak to us through this story:
Or listen to the episode on Spotify or YouTube.
Next week, we’re starting a brand-new podcast series that I’ve been working on, and I can’t wait to share it with you. It’s going to be such a meaningful (and fun!) summer journey—and I hope you’ll join me.
Journeying together,
Taylor Joy