Connecting With God Through Meditation
By: Tarah Avery
When I was in YWAM years ago, I began to learn of this practice called “intercession.”
I quickly fell in love with it and to this day it is one of my favorite ways to connect with God through prayer. It wasn’t until recently that I began to learn, understand, and apply other types of meditative practices in my life. And by no means am I an expert or as disciplined as I’d like to be, but that’s ok, right? Life’s a journey!
I recently learned about Thomas Keating’s “3 programs of happiness” which I shared with you last week. All of us can identify with each of these 3 programs (1. power & control, 2. affection & esteem, 3. security & survival) and most of us overidentify with one in particular, which can quickly become the focus of our life if we aren’t in constant surrender to Jesus.
For example, as an online influencer, I can easily get swept away by the affection & esteem (#2) that you, my readers give me. Obsessing over the number of likes or comments on posts can quickly overtake me if I’m not careful and remind myself of God’s divine love.
The combatants, ways to keep us grounded, for these 3 programs are found in contemplative prayer. But how do you do that?
With the help of Christopher L. Heuertz, author of “The Sacred Enneagram!” His teaching on this is what first got me interested in contemplative prayer. Each of the meditation practices below is using a contemplative prayer practice that he describes.
Thank you, Christopher, for opening my eyes to the beautiful world of meditation!
Here are 3 contemplative prayer (meditation) practices that you can start practicing for a closer relationship with God:
The Welcoming Prayer:
Finding interior freedom instead of pursuing power and control.
This meditative practice is for the one who struggles with clinging to the pursuit of power and control and is called The Welcoming Prayer. This is a stillness meditation technique and will help you practice actively letting go of thoughts and feelings that support your compulsions and addictions of power and control.
When you have an overly emotional experience in daily life, take a moment to be still, and follow these steps:
- Pause for a moment, close your eyes, take a few slow, deep breaths, and scan your body for any uncomfortable sensations. This could be tension, tightness, soreness, or pressure. Acknowledge it. I find that this also helps if you are lying on your back and your body is completely relaxed – as you take those initial deep breaths, just let your body sink into the ground in a relaxed position.
- Welcome God into the feelings, emotions, thoughts, or sensations in your body. Pray with your discomfort and ask what it is telling you about your fear or your sense of being out of control or a lack of trust or anxiety.
- When you start to feel the uncomfortable sensations start to melt away, let go by repeating the following sentences: “I let go of the desire for power & control of myself or others.” “I let go of the desire to change others to fit my idea of what is best.” “God is God and I am not.” As you pray, recognize that God is with you.
The purpose of this prayer is to deepen your relationship with God by accepting God’s healing presence. And will equip you to respond to life’s circumstances in a calm manner rather than react to them out of fear, shame, or frustration.
This takes us into a second form of meditation.
The Examen:
Embracing God’s divine love instead of craving the affection and esteem of others.
This meditative practice is for the one who struggles with clinging to affection and esteem of others and is called The Examen. This is a reflective meditation technique and will help you practice the nearness of God’s Love. I’ve found that it is best practiced at the end of the day.
- The Examen begins by recognizing God is with us as we are, always present, and always loving.
- Next, we move into reflective thanksgiving. When we open our hearts to gratitude, we open our souls to hearing from God.
- At this point, we take a practical survey of the day. Explore the day, searching for a moment, memory, or experience in which you felt God moving toward you or in you. Once you find it, allow yourself to be held by it, listening to what God may be trying to say to you through it. This step of prayer also invites you to find the courage to search for a moment, attitude, or experience in your day in which you found yourself moving away from God’s love and presence. Whatever it is, acknowledge it as an invitation to grace so as not to be overcome or overwhelmed by it.
- After identifying these moments, it is time to rest in the grace that God is bigger than our biggest problems, failures, hurts, or concerns.
- Finally, we end with a prayer of resolution and gratitude to our loving God who gives us hope for another day and all the new opportunities that may come our way.
The Examen helps those of us who have overidentified with craving the affection & esteem of others’ thoughts & opinions, and instead giving it back to God and resting in his love for us.
This takes us into a third form of meditation, and the last one I’ll talk about.
Centering Prayer:
Experiencing the presence of God instead of clinging to security and survival.
The meditative practice for the one who struggles with clinging to security and survival is called Centering Prayer. This is a silent meditation technique and will help you practice silencing your thoughts so that you can focus on and experience God’s presence. What we are doing here is practicing resting in God. It is him that will help you silence the anxiety and stress you might be experiencing through constant movement, both physical & mental, toward security & survival.
This method has been around for a long time in the Christian tradition but was not “formalized into a method” until the 1970s by 3 Trappist monks (The Sacred Enneagram, pg. 227).
The method is simple:
- Sit in an upright position with your hands on your lap (This is the most common position you’ll see in meditation).
- Close your eyes and bring to mind a word, image, or breath as your symbol to consent to the presence and actions of God within you. I like to focus my energies during this time to bring to mind the characteristics of God and thank him for who he is.
- As you notice your thoughts start to wander, bring your attention back to the word, image, or breath you’ve been meditating on. Do this however many times you notice your thoughts wandering. Don’t forget, this is not about getting it right; there’s no judgment in this practice.
- When your prayer period is over, transition slowly from your prayer practice to your active life.
Something that helps me focus during meditation is some gentle music playing in the background (try the artist “Hammock” on Pandora or Spotify). It’s also easiest to start and go as long as you are able until you’ve completely lost focus. Sometimes for me, this time of meditation is 5 minutes, other times it’s 20. Just listen to your body and give allowances to yourself. Especially if you’re just starting out.
If like me, you are just starting to practice meditations, I want to encourage you to try each one of them and see which sticks best. And if you commit to it for at least 3 months, I promise you’ll see that contemplative prayer cultivates a deeper connection with God and helps us realign ourselves with what he offers rather than indulging in our 3 programs of happiness.
Which contemplative prayer (meditation) practice have you done before? Which do you want to start out with?
All my love,
