Growing Closer to God with Guided Meditation
Welcome to the new season of the podcast, now titled "Growing Closer to God with Guided Meditation"!
Join your host, Pastor Robert Young, as we embark on a journey of spiritual exploration and renewal. This podcast is designed to help you deepen your faith and find inner peace through calming, reflective, and transformative meditative practices inspired by scripture.
Our Evolution
While the podcast, formerly known as Not Your Parent's Religion, focused in Seasons 1 and 2 on correcting misinformation and myths about religious beliefs and the teaching of Jesus Christ, the program has evolved. In Season 3, we began drawing closer to God with guided meditations, exploring all the details of why and how to meditate, and discussing the Biblical origins of Christian meditations.
With over 30 years of experience in Church planting and mentoring other Pastors, and 30+ years of training leaders in evangelism/discipleship, Pastor Young is here to guide you through these moments of stillness and connection with God.
What to Expect in Season 4
We are excited to return with Season 4 starting Sunday, October 5. We will continue to offer a structured weekly schedule:
- Sundays: Our weekly guided meditation episode.
- Monday through Friday: Daily devotions and reflections that expand on the topic of the Sunday meditations.
- Wednesdays: Audio episodes of our House Church series. This series reflects the Bible's teaching that believers should gather together for corporate worship, fellowship, encouragement, and even admonishment.
For those seeking an enhanced experience, we are adding video versions of the meditations and devotions to our Patreon page. These videos are designed to give you a more immersive experience as you meditate on the Father, His teachings, and His presence.
Tune in each week as we lead you on this path to connecting more deeply with God.
Growing Closer to God with Guided Meditation
All Night Prayer? Daily Devotion | Friday
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When the night gets quiet, the names we’ve carried get loud. We open Genesis 32:28 and sit with Jacob in the dark, tracing his fear, his wrestle with God, and the dawn that delivers a new name. This isn’t a tidy moral tale about trying harder; it’s a raw, sacred moment where God confronts the stories that have defined us and speaks a truer word over our lives.
We walk through why names in Scripture signal nature and calling, then explore how night prayer becomes a furnace for identity. The labels we didn’t choose—failure, fraud, too much, not enough—often grow roots in trauma, insecurity, and survival. In the presence of God, those roots are exposed and replaced with blessing. You’ll hear how Jacob’s limp is not a curse but a sign of encounter, how a changed name becomes a changed walk, and how that same pattern still unfolds when we stop performing and start wrestling honestly before God.
To make it practical, we guide a short reflection and a spoken affirmation designed to shift your inner narrative: identify the false label God is removing today, and declare, “I walk in the identity God has spoken over me.” Along the way, we connect ancient text to daily choices—setting boundaries, moving toward reconciliation, and trading approval-chasing for grounded purpose. If you’ve ever felt haunted by a title that doesn’t fit anymore, this conversation offers language, Scripture, and prayer to help you step into a new way of being.
Join us at the threshold between night and dawn. Listen, reflect, and pray with us—then share the one false label you’re ready to lay down. If this resonates, follow the show, send it to a friend who needs fresh courage, and leave a quick review so more people can find their new name too.
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Today's scripture is coming from the book of Genesis, chapter thirty-two, verse twenty-eight. Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel. Jacob entered the night full of fear, anxiety, and unresolved identity wounds. He wrestled with God until daybreak. And in that struggle, something holy happened. God renamed him. Night prayer often becomes the place where God confronts the lies you've believed about yourself. The labels others placed on you. The identities shaped by fear, trauma, and insecurity. Jacob's night encounter didn't just change his name. It changed his nature. He walked differently, he lived differently, he saw himself differently. Night prayer is where God reshapes identity, where he removes old labels, where he speaks truth over your life, where he calls you who you really are. Let's take two minutes to reflect on the following question. What false identity, label or lie is God removing from your life today? I walk in the identity God has spoken over me. Again, I walk in the identity God has spoken over me. Our closing prayer. Lord, rename me. Transform my identity, remove every lie, and replace it with your truth. For Christ's sake. Amen.