Advertise on podcast: Christian Meditation for A Bigger Life with Pastor Dave Cover

This is Christian Meditation for A Bigger Life – a time for you to relax your body and refocus your mind to experience the reality of God’s presence. I’m Dave Cover. I want to help you with Christian meditation where you can break through all the distractions and experience God’s presence through biblically guided imagination.  Psalms 63:6 (ESV) King David writes… “…I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you ...” Hebrew: “Mindful of”   Hebrew: “Imagine”   So “mindfulness” and “meditation” are ancient biblical disciplines that God’s people have been practicing for thousands of years.   Being mindful of God through our imagination doesn’t mean trying to picture God. It means using your biblically guided imagination to envision what the Bible tells you is true about God…and all that that means for you in how you envision/narrate your life and your future. Whenever we imagine ourselves in the wrong narrative/story, we put anxiety and stress into our body because we are imagining our life story without God’s sovereignty, without God’s Spirit in us and with us, without God’s goodness and steadfast love for us. In Acts 17 the Apostle Paul is talking to pagan philosophers in Athens. So he is using very general language. But everything he says is part of the gospel. That's what he's doing. He's preaching the gospel. The Good News. So this is God’s good new to you! Paul says in Acts 17:24-25, “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth.” And then in the next verse, he says, “And he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.” Then in verse 28 he says, “In him we live and move and have our being.“ Who can you share this podcast with? If you found this episode helpful, consider sharing it on social media or texting it to a friend you think might benefit from it. Follow Dave Cover on X (Twitter) @davecover Follow A Bigger Life on X @ABiggerLifePod Our audio engineer is Matthew Matlack. This podcast is a ministry of The Crossing, a church in Columbia, Missouri, a college town where the flagship campus of the University of Missouri is located.

This is Christian Meditation for A Bigger Life – a time for you to relax your body and refocus your mind to experience the reality of God’s presence. I’m Dave Cover. I want to help you with Christian meditation where you can break through all the distractions and experience God’s presence through biblically guided imagination.  Psalm 9:10 ESV “And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O LORD, have not forsaken those who seek you.” “LORD” in all uppercase letters in our English Bibles indicates that in Hebrew God’s name, Yahweh, is used (Exodus 3:14-15; Isaiah 42:8). Yahweh is the ancient Hebrew verb form for “HE IS.” God’s name, Yahweh, is used more than any other term for God by far in the Hebrew scriptures. Well over 5,000 times — far more than “God” is used.  When we look at all the various truths associated with God’s name, HE IS, in the Hebrew scriptures (what we call the Old Testament), five powerful truths of Yahweh are emphasized.  HE IS the Creator and Sustainer of ALL that exists, including this entire universe (Ps 33:6; Isa 40:25-28; Isa 42:5; Isa 44:24). HE IS the Giver and Sustainer of ALL life everywhere always (Num 27:16; Job 12:10; Neh 9:6). HE IS eternal and forever God – he inhabits eternity (Isa 57:15; Isa 40:28). HE IS ALWAYS infinitely 100% present with you and in control of everything in your life at every moment (Ps 31:14-15; Psalm 139:1-8; without being any less present or any less focused anywhere else in the universe, because HE IS infinite). See Jesus’s words in Matthew 10:29-31.“ HE IS good and his steadfast love endures forever.” (Most repeated phrase in the OT.) So imagine – envision – this reality. He is the Creator of this entire universe; he is the Source of all being; he is the Giver of your life and sustains your life at every moment; he is the one who “inhabits eternity” (Isaiah 57:15), and so has the eternal perspective in all your life’s circumstances; and he is infinitely, intimately, 100% present with you at every moment and in control of every circumstance in your life. And he is good and his steadfast love for you endures forever. Who can you share this podcast with? If you found this episode helpful, consider sharing it on social media or texting it to a friend you think might benefit from it. Follow Dave Cover on X (Twitter) @davecover Follow A Bigger Life on X @ABiggerLifePod Our audio engineer is Matthew Matlack. This podcast is a ministry of The Crossing, a church in Columbia, Missouri, a college town where the flagship campus of the University of Missouri is located.

This is Christian Meditation for A Bigger Life – a time for you to relax your body and refocus your mind to experience the reality of God’s presence. I’m Dave Cover. I want to help you with Christian meditation where you can break through all the distractions and experience God’s presence through biblically guided imagination.  Hebrews 4:16 (ESV) “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” John 10:11 (NIV) “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” Who can you share this podcast with? If you found this episode helpful, consider sharing it on social media or texting it to a friend you think might benefit from it. Follow Dave Cover on X (Twitter) @davecover Follow A Bigger Life on X @ABiggerLifePod Our audio engineer is Matthew Matlack. This podcast is a ministry of The Crossing, a church in Columbia, Missouri, a college town where the flagship campus of the University of Missouri is located. 

This is Christian Meditation for A Bigger Life – a time for you to relax your body and refocus your mind to experience the reality of God’s presence. I’m Dave Cover. I want to help you with Christian meditation where you can break through all the distractions and experience God’s presence through biblically guided imagination.  Acts 17:25 (NIV)  “…He himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.” Acts 17:28 (NIV) “For in him we live and move and have our being.” John 15:9-11 ESV “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love… These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” Who can you share this podcast with? If you found this episode helpful, consider sharing it on social media or texting it to a friend you think might benefit from it. Follow Dave Cover on X (Twitter) @davecover Follow A Bigger Life on X @ABiggerLifePod Our audio engineer is Matthew Matlack. This podcast is a ministry of The Crossing, a church in Columbia, Missouri, a college town where the flagship campus of the University of Missouri is located. 

This is Christian Meditation for A Bigger Life – a time for you to relax your body and refocus your mind to experience the reality of God’s presence. I’m Dave Cover. I want to help you with Christian meditation where you can break through all the distractions and experience God’s presence through biblically guided imagination.  Isaiah 45:21-22 (NIV)  “Who foretold this long ago, who declared it from the distant past? Was it not I, the LORD? And there is no God apart from me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none but me. Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other.” The idea of all the ends of the Earth is a promise the Bible has been making since its beginning. But it made this promise when God’s people were just 12 nomadic tribes in a small region in the back corners of the Earth. And yet these promises have come true! There are believers in Jesus and every nation to the end of the Earth. Followers of Jesus comprise the single most multiethnic, multicultural, multinational movement in human history! Pew’s most recent data describes Christians explicitly as “the most geographically dispersed” religious group, with roughly 2.3 billion people in the world identifying as Christian. It’s the only religion whose largest blocs of followers are now spread fairly evenly across Africa, Latin America, Europe, North America, and Asia, with no single continent or ethnicity dominating. No other religious movement has such a spread across all continents, languages, and racial groups at this scale. And God foretold it thousands of years ago! The logic God is using here is if I was foretelling the future truthfully thousands of years ago, and it has come to pass, how much more are my other promises going to come true! Who can you share this podcast with? If you found this episode helpful, consider sharing it on social media or texting it to a friend you think might benefit from it. Follow Dave Cover on X (Twitter) @davecover Follow A Bigger Life on X @ABiggerLifePod Our audio engineer is Matthew Matlack. This podcast is a ministry of The Crossing, a church in Columbia, Missouri, a college town where the flagship campus of the University of Missouri is located. 

This is Christian Meditation for A Bigger Life – a time for you to relax your body and refocus your mind to experience the reality of God’s presence. I’m Dave Cover. I want to help you with Christian meditation where you can break through all the distractions and experience God’s presence through biblically guided imagination.  God’s promise to his people… Jeremiah 33:8 (NASB) “I will cleanse them from all their iniquity by which they have sinned against Me, and I will pardon all their iniquities by which they have sinned against Me and by which they have transgressed against Me.” Then v11 says… Jeremiah 33:11 (ESV) “Give thanks to the LORD of hosts, for the LORD is good, for his steadfast love endures forever!” Who can you share this podcast with? If you found this episode helpful, consider sharing it on social media or texting it to a friend you think might benefit from it. Follow Dave Cover on X (Twitter) @davecover Follow A Bigger Life on X @ABiggerLifePod Our audio engineer is Matthew Matlack. This podcast is a ministry of The Crossing, a church in Columbia, Missouri, a college town where the flagship campus of the University of Missouri is located.

This is Christian Meditation for A Bigger Life – a time for you to relax your body and refocus your mind to experience the reality of God’s presence. I’m Dave Cover. I want to help you with Christian meditation where you can break through all the distractions and experience God’s presence through biblically guided imagination.  5 phrases to say to God in prayer: “All things are possible for you.” (Mk 14:36) “Nothing is too difficult for you.” (Jer 32:17) “You are the God who works wonders.” (Ps 77:14) “You call into being things that are not.” (Rom 4:17) “You are good and your steadfast love endures forever.” (Most repeated phrase about God in the Bible) Who can you share this podcast with? If you found this episode helpful, consider sharing it on social media or texting it to a friend you think might benefit from it. Follow Dave Cover on X (Twitter) @davecover Follow A Bigger Life on X @ABiggerLifePod Our audio engineer is Matthew Matlack. This podcast is a ministry of The Crossing, a church in Columbia, Missouri, a college town where the flagship campus of the University of Missouri is located. 

This is Christian Meditation for A Bigger Life – a time for you to relax your body and refocus your mind to experience the reality of God’s presence. I’m Dave Cover. I want to help you with Christian meditation where you can break through all the distractions and experience God’s presence through biblically guided imagination.  Job 33:4 NIV “The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life.” Who can you share this podcast with? If you found this episode helpful, consider sharing it on social media or texting it to a friend you think might benefit from it. Follow Dave Cover on X (Twitter) @davecover Follow A Bigger Life on X @ABiggerLifePod Our audio engineer is Matthew Matlack. This podcast is a ministry of The Crossing, a church in Columbia, Missouri, a college town where the flagship campus of the University of Missouri is located.

This is Christian Meditation for A Bigger Life – a time for you to relax your body and refocus your mind to experience the reality of God’s presence. I’m Dave Cover. I want to help you with Christian meditation where you can break through all the distractions and experience God’s presence through biblically guided imagination.  Nehemiah 9:6 (NIV) “You alone are the LORD. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you.” Isaiah 55:8-9 (NIV) “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” For one, we don’t know all that God knows. And this is especially true when our circumstances get tough. Life becomes painful. We have to remember that we don’t know what God knows. As the heavens are higher than the Earth – as the universe is incomprehensibly vast – so are God‘s thoughts incomprehensibly higher than our thoughts. What he knows is far higher – far more vast – than what we know. In other words, it wouldn’t make sense, if God is the one who created this entire universe, that everything he says and does would be something that we showed or even can’t understand. So we have to trust. Faith is trusting God with things we don’t understand yet. Who can you share this podcast with? If you found this episode helpful, consider sharing it on social media or texting it to a friend you think might benefit from it. Follow Dave Cover on X (Twitter) @davecover Follow A Bigger Life on X @ABiggerLifePod Our audio engineer is Matthew Matlack. This podcast is a ministry of The Crossing, a church in Columbia, Missouri, a college town where the flagship campus of the University of Missouri is located. 

This is Christian Meditation for A Bigger Life – a time for you to relax your body and refocus your mind to experience the reality of God’s presence. I’m Dave Cover. I want to help you with Christian meditation where you can break through all the distractions and experience God’s presence through biblically guided imagination.  Acts 17:25 (NIV)  “…He himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.” Psalm 118:1 ESV “Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever!” Psalms 121:2 (ESV) “My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.” Who can you share this podcast with? If you found this episode helpful, consider sharing it on social media or texting it to a friend you think might benefit from it. Follow Dave Cover on X (Twitter) @davecover Follow A Bigger Life on X @ABiggerLifePod Our audio engineer is Matthew Matlack. This podcast is a ministry of The Crossing, a church in Columbia, Missouri, a college town where the flagship campus of the University of Missouri is located. 

This is Christian Meditation for A Bigger Life – a time for you to relax your body and refocus your mind to experience the reality of God’s presence. I’m Dave Cover. I want to help you with Christian meditation where you can break through all the distractions and experience God’s presence through biblically guided imagination.  Jeremiah 32:17, CSB “Oh, Lord God! You yourself made the heavens and earth by your great power and with your outstretched arm. Nothing is too difficult for you!” “All things are possible for you.” (Jesus prayed in Mk 14:36) “Nothing is too difficult for you.” (Jeremiah prayed in Jer 32:17) “You are the God who works wonders.” (Asaph prayed in Ps 77:14) “You call into being things that are not.” (Paul writes in Rom 4:17) “You are good and your steadfast love endures forever.” (Most repeated words to God in the Bible) Who can you share this podcast with? If you found this episode helpful, consider sharing it on social media or texting it to a friend you think might benefit from it. Follow Dave Cover on X (Twitter) @davecover Follow A Bigger Life on X @ABiggerLifePod Our audio engineer is Matthew Matlack. This podcast is a ministry of The Crossing, a church in Columbia, Missouri, a college town where the flagship campus of the University of Missouri is located. 

This is Christian Meditation for A Bigger Life – a time for you to relax your body and refocus your mind to experience the reality of God’s presence. I’m Dave Cover. I want to help you with Christian meditation where you can break through all the distractions and experience God’s presence through biblically guided imagination.  Job 34:4 NIV “The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life.” Romans 4:17 (NIV)  “The God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not.”  Who can you share this podcast with? If you found this episode helpful, consider sharing it on social media or texting it to a friend you think might benefit from it. Follow Dave Cover on X (Twitter) @davecover Follow A Bigger Life on X @ABiggerLifePod Our audio engineer is Matthew Matlack. This podcast is a ministry of The Crossing, a church in Columbia, Missouri, a college town where the flagship campus of the University of Missouri is located.

This is Christian Meditation for A Bigger Life – a time for you to relax your body and refocus your mind to experience the reality of God’s presence. I’m Dave Cover. I want to help you with Christian meditation where you can break through all the distractions and experience God’s presence through biblically guided imagination.  Acts 17:28 NIV “For in him we live and move and have our being.” Jesus said this… Luke 11:13 ESV “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” Sometimes the Bible refers to the Holy Spirit as “the Spirit of Jesus” (Acts 16:7), or “the Spirit of Christ” (Rom. 8:9). It’s by the Holy Spirit that Jesus is present in you and with you. Ephesians 3:16-17 NIV “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” 1 Corinthians 12:4, 7, 11 NIV “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. …Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. …All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.”  Galatians 5:22-23 ESV “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”   This is what it actually means to be “holy.” When you look at all the verses about the Holy Spirit in the Bible, one way to think of who he is is not just the Holy Spirit, but the Healing Spirit. The more you become aware of God’s healing Spirit in your inner being – the more you pay attention to his presence and his leading – the more YOU will be transformed into the REAL YOU that God intended when he created you (2 Cor. 3:18). Who can you share this podcast with? If you found this episode helpful, consider sharing it on social media or texting it to a friend you think might benefit from it. Follow Dave Cover on X (Twitter) @davecover Follow A Bigger Life on X @ABiggerLifePod Our audio engineer is Matthew Matlack. This podcast is a ministry of The Crossing, a church in Columbia, Missouri, a college town where the flagship campus of the University of Missouri is located.

This is Christian Meditation for A Bigger Life – a time for you to relax your body and refocus your mind to experience the reality of God’s presence. I’m Dave Cover. I want to help you with Christian meditation where you can break through all the distractions and experience God’s presence through biblically guided imagination.  Acts 17:25 NIV “...He himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.” Job 12:10 (NIV) “In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.” Job 34:14-15 NIV “If it were his intention and he withdrew his spirit and breath, all humanity would perish together and mankind would return to the dust.” A very common source of anxiety is our drive for people‘s approval. Galatians 1:10 (NIV) “Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.” Often our anxiety comes from our worries about what others think of us. And that’s only been amplified many times in the age of social media. We use the term, “being a people pleaser“ – the fact that we use that term negatively shows how we know this instinctively – that living your life to please people will always take a toll on you being and becoming the person you really want to be. And more importantly it will take a toll on becoming the person God wants you to be. But I’ve always found comfort in what the apostle Paul says here. It puts my fear of what people think of me, or my always trying to win the approval of certain people, back in its proper perspective. It puts the horse back before the cart so to speak. Who can you share this podcast with? If you found this episode helpful, consider sharing it on social media or texting it to a friend you think might benefit from it. Follow Dave Cover on X (Twitter) @davecover Follow A Bigger Life on X @ABiggerLifePod Our audio engineer is Matthew Matlack. This podcast is a ministry of The Crossing, a church in Columbia, Missouri, a college town where the flagship campus of the University of Missouri is located.

This is Christian Meditation for A Bigger Life – a time for you to relax your body and refocus your mind to experience the reality of God’s presence. I’m Dave Cover. I want to help you with Christian meditation where you can break through all the distractions and experience God’s presence through biblically guided imagination.  Acts 17:25 NIV “...He himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.” Job 34:14-15 NIV “If it were his intention and he withdrew his spirit and breath, all humanity would perish together and mankind would return to the dust.” Psalms 62:5-7 (NASB) 5 My soul, wait in silence for God only, for my hope is from Him. 6 He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I shall not be shaken. 7 On God my salvation and my glory rest; the rock of my strength, my refuge is in God. Waiting in silence for God means quieting your body and your mind so you can pay attention to the whisper of God’s Spirit. In my life the whisper of God’s Spirit is most often when he lifts words off the page of his word to me. And that’s what these verses do for me. And I pray the Spirit of God does that for you too in this meditation. Who can you share this podcast with? If you found this episode helpful, consider sharing it on social media or texting it to a friend you think might benefit from it. Follow Dave Cover on X (Twitter) @davecover Follow A Bigger Life on X @ABiggerLifePod Our audio engineer is Matthew Matlack. This podcast is a ministry of The Crossing, a church in Columbia, Missouri, a college town where the flagship campus of the University of Missouri is located.