Tension - May 17, 2026

In this meditation, Jen Shoutta invites you to slow down, breathe deeply, and reflect on the message shared at Southeast Christian Church on Sunday, May 17, 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 0:06

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 of your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your mind. This is the first and great commandment. The second is like it. 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. Inhale through the nose. Seal the lips and exhale through the nose. And just 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, I just invite you to begin 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. Now let's begin to get curious. What is your breath like? Is it fast or slow? Is it high up in your chest? Or can you begin to slow your breath down with each breath in? Begin to let your ribs expand, let your belly expand. And as you breathe out, imagine your lungs are like balloons exhaling all 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 that it has on our nervous system, the more that I'm amazed at God's design. Of course, He designed us to be calmed by breathing in His breath of life. So now I just invite you to begin to notice your body. If you're seated in a chair, I invite you to plant your feet firmly on the ground and sit up nice and tall. Or 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 comes naturally. It's automatic, continuous, and involuntary. 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, you are a God, and exhale full of grace and truth. Inhale, you are a God, and exhale full of grace and truth. Take a moment to just breathe and pray it out with your rhythm of breath, inhaling you are a God, and exhaling full of grace and truth. This week we finished our series called Tension, where we are talking about the tension of living as followers of Jesus. Scott talked about how Jesus is full of both grace and truth, and that we as humans tend to pick aside and lean more on either the grace side or more on the truth side. But Scott said, if you try to resolve the tension between grace and truth, you lose what makes Jesus Jesus because he is 100% grace and 100% truth. Our invitation as followers of Jesus is to partner with Jesus in his mission of restoration of all things. So we need to refuse to resolve the tension between grace and truth and reflect Jesus to those around us. As Scott said, truth is a person. Grace is a person. And a response to the tension of both grace and truth embodied is Jesus on the cross. So let's take some time to reflect on what it looks like in our own lives, lived out, to reflect Jesus, full of grace and truth to those around us. I'm going to read scripture over you a few times. The first time that I read it, just let the words wash over you and through you. Don't try to analyze them or apply them. Just soak in the word of God. John 1.14 says, The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. As I read God's word over you again, this time I want you to listen for a word or a phrase that stands out to you. In the pause after, let that word or phrase land and let it take up space. Let the Holy Spirit breathe on it and then begin to notice its impact on you. John 1:14 says, The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son who came from the Father, full of grace and truth? As I read God's word over you again, this time listen for how you can apply His Word to your life. Like a puzzle piece, how does it fit in your life and in your heart? And in the pause after, reflect and ask yourself, How then will I live in the light of God's truth? John 1 14 says, The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. Father God, thank you that you are a God full of both grace and truth. Thank you that you extend grace to me despite the truth that I don't deserve it. Lord, I pray that we as a church continue to be transformed into your likeness of the fullness of grace and truth. Forgive us for the times when we pick sides and we lean more towards grace or more towards truth. Lord, as we encounter the world around us, I pray that we don't try to resolve the tension by leaning more towards one side or the other, but that we reflect you rightly by pointing people back to the cross, the image of the fullness of grace and truth. It's in your name that I pray. Amen.