The Embodied Experiment

April 20, 2022

Want to see how your physical posture affects your spiritual experience? Try this contemplative exercise to increase awareness of your body in worship.

  1. Pull up Psalm 46 in your favorite Bible-listening app (YouVersion, BibleGateway.com, YouTube, etc.), or ask a friend to try this with you.
  2. Sit comfortably—perhaps with your feet flat on the floor. Take a centering breath. Feel the air fill your lungs, and hold your breath at the top before releasing it. Ask the Holy Spirit to be present with you. Listen to the Scripture three times.

    • First, with your arms folded
    • Second, with your hands flat on your knees
    • Third, with your hands open, palms up.
  3. Notice the sensations in your body during each reading.

    • What changed between each posture change?
    • What effect did your body posture have on your experience of God’s voice in Scripture?
    • How can you incorporate this new awareness into your times with God?

Offer God your observations in prayer, and see what He says.

In Romans 12:1-2, Paul urges us to offer our bodies as living sacrifices as our spiritual act of worship–in the same breath that he invites us to “be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” We’re called to love God heart, mind, soul, and strength, in a way that is uniquely integrative (involving each part of us) and calls for the redemption and renewal of ourselves as whole people. What would it mean to truly embrace that in your walk with the Lord?

Lyndi Lee Markus

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