Tension - April 19, 2026

In this guided meditation, Jen Shoutta invites you to slow down, breathe deeply, and reflect on the message shared at Southeast Christian Church on Sunday, April 19, 2026. This episode offers a quiet space to prayerfully process the sermon, allowing its truth to move from head knowledge into heart transformation.

Through Scripture, reflection prompts, and moments of stillness, you’ll be gently guided to listen for God’s voice, notice what is stirring in your spirit, and consider how the message speaks into your everyday life. Whether you’re revisiting the sermon or engaging with it for the first time, this meditation is designed to help you encounter Jesus personally and carry His truth with you throughout your week.

Click here to watch the sermon.

You can reach Jen at jen.shoutta@southeastcc.com 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to a time of worship and prayer to connect with our Creator, heart, soul, and mind. In Matthew 22, the Sadducees ask Jesus what the greatest commandment is. His answer is twofold. He replies, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. The second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. So, friends, this time is a time set aside for us to worship and pray, not only with our minds, but with our hearts and our souls, so that we can be transformed from the inside out and love our neighbors as ourselves. My hope with these meditations is to give us space to reflect on what we heard in the sermon on Sunday. How do we take what we heard and know in our heads to be true and let it transform our hearts into the likeness of Christ? So wherever you are, I just invite you to take a deep breath in through your nose and let it out through your mouth. In through the nose and let it out through the mouth. One more time in through the nose and out through the mouth. Inhale through the nose. Seal the lips and exhale through the nose. Continue breathing with your rhythm of breath in through the nose and out through the nose. Genesis 2, 7 says, Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And the man became a living creature. So as you're here breathing in through the nose and out through the nose, I invite you to take a moment to give thanks to the one who gave you that breath and know that he is as close to you as your next breath. And now I invite you to begin to notice what your breath is like. Is it fast or slow? Is it high up in your chest? Or can you begin to let it come all the way down to the bottom of your belly? Let your ribs expand, let your belly expand with each breath in. And as you exhale, imagine your lungs are being emptied like a balloon. Like you're releasing that stale air that no longer serves you, making room for fresh, life-giving oxygen with your next breath in. The more that I learn about the breath and the calming effects it has on our nervous system, the more I'm amazed at God's design. Of course, He designed us to be calmed by breathing in His breath of life. So now we're going to begin to notice our bodies. If you're seated in the chair, I invite you to plant your feet firmly on the ground and sit up nice and tall. Maybe you're walking as you're listening to this. If so, can you begin to notice your feet as they move along the ground? Whatever you're doing, can you begin to relax your shoulders, relax your jaw, and just continue to breathe deeply, the breath of life. To connect our minds to our hearts and our souls, we're going to practice breath prayer. The practice of breath prayer is the intentional linking of our breath with a word or a short phrase. Our breathing is something that comes naturally. And when we let our inhales and our exhales represent an intentionally chosen prayer, we begin to live out Paul's instructions in 1 Thessalonians 5.17 to pray without ceasing. So in the quiet of your heart, on your next inhale, whisper, I am, and on your next exhale, flexible. Inhale, I am, and exhale, flexible. Take a moment to just breathe and pray it out with your rhythm of breath, inhaling I am, and exhaling flexible. This week we started a new sermon series called Tension. Scott defined tension as the state of being stretched or strained. Scott read through Jesus' first miracle from John chapter 2. John chapter 2, verses 1 through 11 says this. Woman, why do you involve me? Jesus replied, My hour has not yet come. His mother said to the servants, Do whatever he tells you. Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, Fill the jars with water. So they filled them to the brim. Then he told them, Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet. They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside and said, Everyone brings out the choice wine first, and then the cheaper wine, after the guests have had too much to drink. But you have saved the best till now. What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him. Scott talked through the importance of Jesus using the jars used for ceremonial washing to do his first miracle. If I'm honest, I've never heard this before. Maybe you're like me where you read the story and breeze right past verses six through seven and pay no attention to the detail of the ceremonial washing jars. Scott said it this way. Jesus's first miracle is an announcement and an invitation to where he is going. Jesus is saying, if you are going to follow me, you have to learn to live in the tension. I'm going to do things that stretch you and strain you, like desecrating the ceremonial washing jars with wine. So the question that Scott asked is, how flexible are you willing to be with the things that you hold on to the tightest? But maybe first we start with the question of what am I holding on to? So let's take a minute. Maybe take a deep breath. Maybe close your eyes, and then let's pray. Lord, search me and know me. Bring to my mind the things that I am holding on to so tightly that are forwarding the work of your spirit within me. Now let's pause and listen. Allow the spirit to move and bring to mind what it is you're holding on to so tightly. With the things that we hold on to the tightest. And how we posture ourselves to answer that question has everything to do with how much or how little Jesus can work in our lives and lead us and transform us into the church that He has called us to be. So, friends, let's take a moment to posture ourselves to be flexible, to release what we're holding on to so tightly. So I just invite you to clench your hands into a fist. Imagine whatever it is that God brought to mind that you're holding on to so tightly is in the clenched fist of your hand. Imagine squeezing it so tightly that nothing else can get in. Maybe hold your breath as you're doing this. Now release your clenched fist and let out a big exhale. Imagine releasing whatever it is you're holding on to so tightly and giving it over to God. Reminding yourself that He is in control and you are not. And with palms open, invite Jesus in to replace whatever it is you have been holding on to so tightly. Let's pray. Father God, thank you for your word. Thank you for Scott and the illumination of the importance of the detail of you using the ceremonial washing jars for your first miracle. Father, thank you for inviting us to live in tension with you. Forgive us for the things that we cling to so tightly and help us to be a people that are flexible so that we can release anything that is getting in the way of your invitation to follow you and be transformed into your likeness. It's in your name I pray. Amen.