154: Using Christian Meditation to Go Deeper with God, an interview with Jennifer Tucker

Carrie: Happy new year and January, everybody. I know that when I talk to different people, we talk about new year’s resolutions, but this year I really want to focus on what’s your desire for 2025. Because a lot of times we really act out of our desires. And I know that I’ve spoken with many people who are Christians and have a desire to really grow closer to the Lord in 2025, really dive into Bible reading, maybe in a different way than you have before.

And so this episode is going to be really great for that.

Hello, and welcome to Christian Faith and OCD with Kiri Bach. I’m a Christ follower. wife and mother, licensed professional counselor who helps Christians struggling with OCD get to a deeper level of healing. When I couldn’t find resources for my clients with OCD, God called me to bring this podcast to you with practical tools for developing greater peace.

We’re here to bust through the shame and stigma surrounding struggling with OCD as a Christian. Sharing, hopeful stories of healing, helping you replace uncertainty with faith. I’m here to help you. Let go of the past and future to walk in the present abundant life God has for you. So let’s dive right in to today’s episode.

We’re talking today with Jen Tucker, who we had on the show before. Welcome back Jen.

Jen: Hi, thanks so much for having me again.

Carrie: Yeah, Jennifer Tucker joined us to talk about her book, Breath as Prayer, back in episode 75. And that is a episode that a lot of people have listened to, and I think really resonated with being able to use breath prayers for anxiety.

So if you guys haven’t listened to that episode, check it out after you listen to this one. We’re talking today about Christian meditation, using the Bible, and this process of Lectio Divina, which is an older way of looking at scripture. It’s not anything new, just something that you’ve really brought to us that’s been beneficial to you.

Jen: Yeah, it’s just another tool, another way that’s kind of helped me with my anxiety, but also just growing closer to God, too.

Carrie: You know, it’s interesting. There’s all these different ways to read the Bible. And I think I went through one with Priscilla Shire one time that had a bunch of Ps. I don’t remember exactly how that one went, but our church has been in this process of reading through the Bible chronologically in 2024.

So we did that. And it, that’s good. I think there’s a time and a place to understand the breadth of scripture and understand the story as a whole. But I told my husband, I’m really looking forward to 2025, kind of going a little bit deeper on some scripture passages. Tell us what the process of your Bible reading has been like at different points in your life.

Have you ever felt like I’m just here and it’s a checklist, I’m just showing up? Absolutely. Yeah.

Jen: Like you said, there’s lots of ways to read your Bible and there’s not like a right or wrong to this. So I’m not presenting this way of, Oh, this is the way you have to do it. This is just another option. I think as we grow in Christ and as we move through our journey with him, like you said, in different seasons and different periods of our life, there might be some times we lean more toward the deep study and the Bible studies and all of that.

And there might be times when we just need a simple practice. Of even just the breath prayers, where you just cling in one little verse at a time and I think, That’s okay. There’s no pressure to have to do it a certain way. That, for me, that’s where I was for so long. I felt like I wasn’t doing it right. I kept trying different things and it did become more like a checklist.

My quiet time with God was just, I need to check this off my list so I’m the quote unquote good Christian, you know, and doing all the things that I’m supposed to do so that I’m right with God and the pressure that I put on myself and the expectations of doing it perfectly or doing it the right way or having to try to come up with some kind of profound takeaway that I took with me each time.

That burned me out a lot from reading the Bible, too. And even the, I read through the Bible chronologically one year. It was great. Like you said, I think there’s a benefit to each type and it, throughout whichever season you’re in in your life, there might be easier to do it one way or another, but there’s no right or wrong, really.

The chronological, I don’t know that it was very beneficial in one way. It didn’t really go deep. I didn’t really, Linger with any part of the scripture because I was just trying to get through all the verses each day. Again, it became more like a checklist for me and I missed out on, it became more about doing this thing for God rather than being with him in scripture and really hearing his voice through his word and what is he speaking into my life and my circumstances given my feelings right now, my thoughts right now, what’s going on in my life right now.

And this practice of Lectio Divina has really helped me more. It’s definitely, it’s not a Bible study, which I think there’s definitely an importance in understanding the Bible in the context, in the historical context of the scripture passages. Lectio Divina is not that. It is really a way to deeply contemplate a very small portion of scripture and really kind of reading it in a way where.

Really slowly savoring those words until it really gets down into the marrow of who we are and we allow the Holy Spirit to really speak to us through those words and what does He have for me in that and how is that going to change me from the inside out through His power. And so that’s really what Lectio Divina is, it’s a slower way of looking at it.

It’s an intentional, there’s involved silence, prayer, reading, meditating, and then the last segment I have is embodying. So then going through the rest of my day, how do I embody this passage? I want

Carrie: to go back to how most of us, I think, were taught how to read the Bible, more like a textbook. You open it up and there’s chapter one, and what’s the intro to chapter one?

Who’s talking? Who’s it to? What’s the content? What’s it about? If we’re studying something for school, there’s supposed to be like a takeaway. I’m supposed to get something out of it. And you mentioned that a little bit earlier, approaching the Bible like, okay, I’m supposed to have some kind of revelation or feel like the Holy Spirit’s supposed to talk to me in some kind of deep way.

I’ve really had to learn that there’s a difference in my spirit, just even if I show up with the Bible, even if I read it, I might be a little bit half asleep, but it’s like food. I need that in my spirit, my spiritual food, and it doesn’t have to be this profound intellectual experience that maybe we feel like it has to be every single time.

Jen: Right, I think I used to read more for information, like just to gain that knowledge and know all the facts and know all the stories and it kind of, like you said, it became like a textbook. I need to know the Bible chapters in order. It was all about memorization and knowing all the things, but Lectio Divina is more about not reading for information, but reading for transformation.

And it’s that idea of just sitting with that scripture, just letting it sit. And yeah, it might hit you really deeply and it may not. You might feel like, I don’t know, I don’t really feel anything here. And that’s okay. I think that’s part of the process. It’s just creating that rhythm. Okay, every day I’m going to slow down this crazy busy life.

And I’m going to take a few deep breaths and I’m going to sit in silence with God and be very present to his presence in this moment with me as I’m sitting with scripture. It’s just a very different way to approach scripture, not looking for some great revelation, not trying to dig through and find, Oh, that’s what I need to cling to today, but just knowing, okay, I’m just going to sit with this little passage.

I may or may not, I’m not going to force anything to happen. I’m not going to try to make it to this great revelatory experience. Yeah, exactly. I may not find this deep peace. Although I do feel like over time, as we practice meditation, we will feel that that inner peace, because that comes from.

Recognizing God’s presence with us at all times and that’s where the true peace comes from. It’s not about manufacturing some kind of feeling or getting some kind of big revelation. It’s just learning to be okay with just sitting in the silence with God and with his word. And that’s really simple, but it’s hard to do.

Yes. It’s harder than you think.

Carrie: In present in prayer, you talked about a psychological study where there were people who had the choice of like sitting with their own thoughts. Or getting electric shock. And I think it was over half of the men chose the electric shock. And I was like, Whoa, this is a problem.

We really need to work on this as a society. We can’t sit with our own thought process. I imagine that for many people with OCD, they’re like, Oh, if it’s an obsession, I would totally choose the shock because that thought is terrifying. I don’t want to sit with that. How have you developed this practice of sitting in silence?

What has that been like for you? Was that super hard in the beginning?

Jen: Absolutely, it’s been hard. I think I feel this pressure that if I’m not doing something, I’m not producing something, then I’m not meeting up to whatever internal expectations I have for myself, or I’m wasting my time, or there’s better things I could be, or there’s just so much I have to do.

I have a child who needs my support a lot and I’m like, well, I have to do this so that she’s okay. I let other things take priority of that silence and take priority over my own self care as well because we do have a lot going on in our family and with specifically with my daughter who has been in and out of hospitals and treatment centers and things like that.

And so finding times to really be still and silent has been very much a challenge. And that’s where this book came out of. I wrote a lot of it when I was actually living away from home and I had to relocate for a little period of time because she was in daily treatment that I could not drive back and forth from home to, it was just too far, so we’re living out of a hotel or Airbnb for weeks.

So as I was writing this, I just felt so scattered and there was just so much going on and it was hard, it was a hard season. This writing of this book forced me to practice what I was writing and to get really still and just sit with God and be very present to his presence with me, which helped me through some really hard days.

Because as I went through the day and things got crazy and busy and we’re running around Atlanta and doing all this stuff, reminding myself over and over, God’s with me. He was with me in the silence. He’s with me in the chaos. He’s with me through it all. And that’s where. I was able to cling on to that piece that otherwise the storm of that season would have taken me under easily.

I don’t know if I answered your question or not, but it’s a hard thing to practice. It’s hard, especially if you’re in a hard season. But that’s kind of when I found I need it most. I really need to when things are crazy and chaotic. I need that stillness and silence even more than I can imagine.

Carrie: Yeah, I have developed this practice of And I never thought I would be like the quote morning person because I’ve always loved my sleep.

When you’re a mom of a two and a half year old and I have a husband who has some disability, when I get up in the morning before everybody else in the household, that’s great time for quiet and peace and contemplation because No one needs anything from me yet. Right. Once the day gets going, it’s, Mommy this, and look at that, and I want to watch TV.

And even, I’ve realized though, within myself, listening to podcasts all the time, I think there’s this tendency a lot for us to just fill the voice. And we put on the TV, even for background noise, so we don’t need it. People have YouTube going, or they have a podcast, or, We have phone apps now where you could do all the things.

You can watch TV or sports or whatever. And we haven’t really practiced this, so we are uncomfortable with it. And I just want to remind our audience, discomfort is not always a bad thing. Sometimes, that’s how we stretch and grow and expand. The seed has to break open to come up and for something to shoot up and grow.

The caterpillar has to break out of the cocoon in order to fly. Practicing a little bit of discomfort is really good for our body. distress tolerance, which helps us with anxiety and things like that. I want to ask you too about sometimes meditation in Christian circles, it gets a bad rap because people say, Oh no, that’s a Eastern practice.

Just wanted to ask you about how do you see Christian meditation being different from just secular forms of meditation?

Jen: Right. Yeah. I’ve had a bit of pushback in that area to just the idea of meditation. And I understand it. I get it because I used to be there too. I don’t know. That sounds a little too new age.

I don’t know if I should be doing that, but honestly, and it’s true, there’s a lot of forms of meditation. There’s lots of ways to meditate and it’s used all around the world in lots of different religions. A lot of the ones that have become more trendy and popular in recent days and recent years, Are rooted more in Buddhism and those types of practices.

So I can understand the hesitation, but Christian meditation as Christians, we don’t need to be wary of meditating because the Bible throughout scripture tells us specifically to meditate on his word day and night to hide it in our hearts. Like, we’re told directly to meditate. And I think the difference is, because meditation, just as a general practice, is all about just kind of focusing our mind, simplifying and quieting the noise around us, and kind of just learning how to focus.

And so for Christians, The focus of our thoughts becomes God’s word. We’re not trying to empty our minds of all thought, we’re not trying to look for that inner answer to all the things in the world or find our peace within ourselves. We’re turning our minds and our hearts to God. We’re turning toward recognizing his presence with us in the present moment.

So even practices like mindfulness and those types of things, those are wonderful practices that actually can help draw us closer to God. But it really depends on your motivation and where is your focus at. And I think meditation as a Christian is not only okay, completely okay, but I think the Bible asks us to do that.

It’s a practice. God knows we need times of stillness and focus on his word. He didn’t create our bodies and us to move at these breakneck speeds with no time to rest and we’re go, go, go all the time. He made us to need that stillness. and silence. And I think we find as we do that, not only will it help connect us to him, but it helps our bodies physically.

It helps our mental health as well. So there’s lots of benefits. We can’t deny the scientific benefits of the practice of meditation. Like it’s proven, it’s study after study has shown. How beneficial it can be to our overall well being. As Christians, we don’t need to like, Oh, no, that’s science. That has nothing to do with our faith.

No, it’s all interrelated. Our brains, our bodies, our soul, all of it’s interrelated. And as Christians, we get to tap into the Word of God, into His power on top of all that.

Carrie: I think it’s so cool when science lines up with the Bible and people talk about, this is a little bit of a tangent, but talking about like forgiveness and scientists will tell you about the benefits of forgiveness on your body.

And I’m like, well, yes, God wants us to do this. It’s for our own health and wellbeing and spiritual connection with him. Like we need forgiveness in our lives. I appreciate that. I talk to clients about mindfulness a lot as well. If we don’t know what’s going on internally, if I don’t know what I’m feeling, then it’s really hard for me to connect with God and say, Hey, God, I’m feeling this sense of anger.

Recently, I was like, I have this jealousy that I need to deal with in my life. But if I don’t, open myself up to developing that awareness and I just fly through life, then I’m not able to deal with that and say, okay, how do I unpack this with God in a healthy way so that I end up on the other side being the person that God desires for me to be, and that I desire to be?

Jen: And that takes a lot of intention, like, you have to be very intentional about it. Because otherwise, the day will just kind of fly right by. So you have to be intentional about taking those moments to do that deeper inner work that a lot of us just kind of, I’ll get to that later, I’ll do that another time.

There’s too many other things outside to do and get done. But we neglect that inner work that is so important to how we then live out our

Carrie: outer life. There’s so much in the Bible about that. Out of the overflow of your heart, your mouth speaks, is like one scripture I’m thinking of. Just that We have to have this internal transformation or like you can’t bear fruit unless you abide in the vines.

What does that mean? And I think we focus so much on behavior, on how can I change my behavior, that’s an external focusing on the true change comes from internal. But I think because it’s harder to measure that, we aren’t always aware of how that’s taking place, that we get discouraged or frustrated by that.

But if we submit ourselves to the Lord and to that transformational process, I think that’s just a big piece of it, us being willing to submit to the Holy Spirit’s work in our life and not block that by our own. Oh, I can do that on my own.

Jen: And I think we, a lot of times, speaking of the fruit of the Spirit, and I touch on a little in the book, but we can’t make the fruit produce, like we can’t make fruit grow.

That’s the work of the Holy Spirit. Our job is to abide in Him, and then the natural consequence of that is going to be we’re going to produce the fruit. We’re going to be more like Him the more time we spend with Him. But I think for a lot of time, I was like, Oh, I got to make this happen. Okay. So I need to be gentleness.

Okay. I have to be gentle in everything I do. How can I do that? Then I make another checklist of all the things I have to do to make that fruit appear in my life. When really it’s not supposed to be that hard work, that hard at it. All we need to do is abide in him. And what does that look like? Spending time with him, getting close to him, and abiding, there’s a lot of stillness involved in that.

It’s not a do this, do that, it’s a being with him. And that shift, and that’s so hard for us in our culture especially, to make that shift of, it’s not something you have to produce. That’s something the Holy Spirit will produce in you as you rest in Him. That’s why yoke is easy and His burden is light.

It’s not supposed to be so hard. It’s just when you’re with Him, He’s going to help you make that transformation internally. He’s going to do that work as we, again, surrender to Him and just spend time with Him and allow Him to do that work in us.

Carrie: We talked about silence in the Theodovina process.

There’s prayer involved, there’s reading through the scripture slowly, intentionally. Tell us a little bit more about that process.

Jen: Yeah, I lay out a framework that involves five different elements. We have the silence, prayer, reading, meditating, and then embody, but it’s not like a sequential thing where you have to, okay, I have to be silent, then pray, then meditate, then this, but really it kind of overlaps and flows all together into one and you can make it your own and individualize it as you want.

There is a time you begin, usually I begin with silence, and a lot of times I’ll pray breath prayer, something to kind of just calm and get in that moment and then pray to God. Start with prayer. I did put guided prayers throughout, but the idea is that this is time between you and God. So your prayers are going to hopefully eventually just be your own conversation with him, inviting him into this moment and into this space.

being mindful of his presence with you in that moment. As you then approach a small portion of scripture, just a few verses, read through it. And I give three different points of meditation. You don’t have to do all three each time. Maybe there’s just one you focus on. Maybe there’s, depending on your time, depending on just whatever the Holy Spirit leads you to do in that time.

But the first one is about just one word or phrase stands out to you from that little passage. And then meditating, focusing just on that thought and sitting in silence again and allowing the Holy Spirit to kind of speak, what do you have for me here? Why did that word stand out to me, God? Taking time to not just talk at God, but just sit, listen, just be silent and listen.

We’re not used to doing that, but that’s training the ears of our heart to really hear his voice. Not an audible voice, but we’ll hear it. And his nudging in our soul. You may not. Honestly, there’s maybe times when you don’t, and that’s okay too. Again, we’re not trying to make it happen. We’re not gonna force some kind of crazy experience here.

It’s just allowing yourself to be silent and be open to his whispers and his words through that passage. Another way you can meditate on that scripture is to pray through it, just phrase by phrase or word by word, just taking time to pause. As you read and pray to God through that passage, then the third thing is to consider what invitation God might be giving you.

This is where we consider what your thoughts are. You might have some racing thoughts, some intrusive thoughts, some things happening in your mind. Be aware of that. Take those to God. Consider what those thoughts are. Consider your feelings, how your body is feeling, what your emotions are in that time, and also your circumstances of your life.

Given all those things. What might God be inviting you to do or to embrace after reading this passage? Like what is in there that maybe he’s leading you to say, and he wants you just to give that thought to him. Like maybe there’s a pressing thought that just keeps barraging your brain and maybe he’s inviting you to give that to him and to, Maybe focus on something else.

I don’t know. It’s going to be a very personal thing to each person and a hundred people could read the same passage and get something else out of it because it can be very personal to you. And then the last segment is to embody it. I just give a couple of prompts. Okay. Now, as you move through your day and things get crazy and you get busy, What’s something you can cling to from this to help to focus on that transformation that God’s doing in you?

You don’t have to make it happen, but what’s some way you could participate in that transformation? What’s a way you can kind of be aware of that as you move through your day? We don’t just close our Bible and then, Oh, that’s it. That part of my life is closed and done and he will become a part of you and influence how you walk through your day.

Yeah. The more time we spend with him. So that’s kind of the layout and the framework, but again, it can be very personal and it’s just a matter of being intentional about slowing down and getting quiet and just zeroing in on a very small part of scripture and focusing your mind just on that. One tiny truth or that one tiny word even it can be just one word and then think about that through the day as you go through your day too and that just that reshifting and turning and returning again to that thought, it makes it more of a habit and it kind of that whole rewiring the brain and making new neural pathways that kind of as you shift how you respond to stress, how you respond to the things that happen in your life to let me turn back to what was that one word?

What was that one phrase? And just doing that, then it becomes more natural and more automatic as you go through your day.

Carrie: Yeah, in terms of our feeling experience as we’re going through this process, I think it’s so easy for us to say, God, take this feeling away, take this fear away, take this loneliness away.

For me recently, I think I’ve felt a little isolated on my motherhood journey because I have some great friends that don’t have children or yeah, I mean, I would say a lot of people that are married or single that just don’t have children and that kind of is who is in my life and I’ve really wanted to develop more her.

mother friends. And so through this process of praying and just opening myself, okay, God, yes, I want you to bring community into my life. What is my role in this? God really put it on my heart to create something or to put myself out there to say, hey, in a local Facebook group, hey, are there any like working moms there that would like to be connected?

Because a lot of times you’ll find things for stay at home moms, they can be kind of get together pretty easily and they have more time to get together. And so it’s a more natural flow where I was like, Hey, is anybody interested in this? And just was able to meet with a few recently at the library just to talk about mom things and feel really seen and heard and understood.

But that never would have come had I not experienced that discomfort of loneliness.

Jen: Yeah, our feelings are not the enemy. It’s okay to feel those things and those can be just those signposts where God’s guiding you in a certain direction. And you’re right. We don’t pray away our fear. We don’t pray away these feelings.

That’s not the goal of prayer at all. And it’s not about changing our circumstances or the chaos that we’re in. Like the last few years have been really, really hard for us personally. My daughter’s been in and out, like I said, of hospitals and treatment and very sick. And that didn’t get better. And we’re still on that road.

Even though I’ve prayed and we’ve done all the things, you know, for, there was a time when I thought, God, I did all the things, why aren’t you coming through? Why aren’t you healing? I prayed for healing and you didn’t heal. He did not heal. But what it does is it changes us through that crisis, like through that chaos.

It gives us the strength to remain in the hard things. And as the storm rages, we can you. be stronger through it, which is crazy because it’s like threatening to totally uproot you, but you can actually find so much strength and these practices that we make a part of our rhythm can really keep us attached to him.

I like to say breath prayer was the thing that tethered me to Christ during crisis and meditation has been what’s anchored me through the longer lasting like storms that have just continued to go. And so I need those tethers. I need those anchors. I need those things to keep me grounded in him.

Otherwise, yeah, when it gets hard and those prayers don’t get answered the way I want them to, it’s easy to get disheartened and discouraged. And so that I have to remind myself over and over. That God’s with me, He hasn’t changed, He still loves us, He’s still at work, He hasn’t stopped. And these practices help me to do that and help me in a way that helps calm that anxiety and that fear and all that can become out of control for me.

And while at the same time, really deepening my faith in ways that I never anticipated before all of this. Yeah, it’s not about getting an answer. It’s about clinging to him through it all.

Carrie: Present in Prayer, and I’ll hold it up for anybody that’s watching on YouTube, Present in Prayer is out and look for it where books are sold.

So there’s 30 opportunities in here. To practice this framework, and I love how you divided it up by Philippians 4, 8, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right. And there’s different activities under each of those. It’s a way to really maybe read the Bible in a different way than you have before or spend time with God in a little bit different way.

Then you have before and it doesn’t have to be perfect and you don’t have to do it. It’s not a 30 days devotional life. You can pick it up and do it a day or two and put it down and do a different type of quiet time and come back to it and pick it back up. I love that freedom and flexibility surrounding it too.

Well thank you for coming and certainly sharing your wisdom with all of us and I’m glad to have had you back on the show. I think that this is an important topic for everyone to be exploring.

Jen: Thank you so much. I really love talking to you.