A Guided Meditation with Deuteronomy 31:8

Psalm 119:148 says, “My eyes are awake before the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promise” (ESV). Biblical meditation is finding time to be alone with God. It’s using meditation to recalibrate your mind and heart and even your body with the vertical reality of God’s presence and God’s promises. Using “the eyes of your heart” — your biblically guided imagination — to experience God’s presence and promises to you in a way that replaces stress and anxiety with God’s peace and joy and confidence. This is something God’s people have been doing for thousands of years.  Let’s take the time to do something like that now. (But first, if your podcast app is set to skip silent sections, disable that now.) This is a time for you to meditate and focus your thoughts and imagination on the light-giving, life-giving presence of the I AM. There'll be other times to think about things. Plan things. Do things. To fix things. You can do all that later. But put all that aside for now and focus on God being present with you right now 100% — focused on you 100% — without being any less present and any less focused anywhere else.  This is God’s promise to you everywhere in Scripture. Even in his very name — I AM. God’s presence is always in the present tense — always present with you fully. Let’s meditate on God’s promise in… Deuteronomy 31:8 (NIV) The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. He is the Giver of your life. The Source of rest and peace. Shalom.  Imagine God’s Spirit speaking his word in that verse to YOU — “The I AM with you. He will never leave you. He will never forsake you.” God says this in his word to his people. So imagine him saying it to you… Now imagine him saying the rest of that verse — “Do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged.”  Imagine every part of your being — every cell in your body — resting in that verse. Anxiety is a kind of fea