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.
Episodes
409 episodes
What Happens When We Combine Faith & Works? | Thursday Devotion
Freedom isn’t just a feeling we hope shows up someday. We can practice it today, right in the middle of uncertainty, by taking one clear step of faith even when we don’t have “proof” yet. That’s the heart of this short, devotional Christian pod...
What If Your Thoughts Are Not the Final Say? | Wednesday Devotion
One stubborn thought can quietly run your whole day: I can’t, I’m stuck, nothing will change, God won’t come through. We slow down and face that inner script head-on, starting with a simple reflection question that helps you name the limiting b...
What Changes When Fear Stops Leading | Tuesday Devotion
Fear can feel responsible, even protective, but it quietly steals trust and drains peace. Pastor Robert Young leads a short, focused spiritual reset that starts with two simple truths: releasing fear makes room for faith, and surrendering contr...
What Changes When You See Yourself Through God’s Eyes? | Monday Devotion
Freedom doesn’t always start with a dramatic breakthrough. Sometimes it starts with a quiet moment of awareness, when we finally notice the thought patterns we’ve been calling “normal.” Pastor Robert Young leads us through a short but piercing ...
Breaking Limiting Mindsets | Deep Dive with Dan & Sheila
You can have a full tank, a powerful engine, and a clear highway and still feel stuck at 40 mph. That’s what limiting beliefs do: they behave like an invisible governor, quietly deciding what you expect, what you attempt, and what you’re willin...
A Father’s Day Blessing!
Father’s Day can hit nerves you didn’t expect. Maybe you feel thankful for a dad who showed up, or maybe you’re carrying the ache of absence, distance, harsh words, or grief. We slow down and make room for all of it, because your story matters ...
Rest: Daily Devotion with Dan & Sheila | Friday
Running on 1% battery with twenty apps open feels normal now, and that’s the problem. We talk about the quiet contradiction many of us live with: we treat exhaustion like a badge of honor, then wonder why our faith feels brittle, our emotions f...
Lament: Daily Devotion with Dan & Sheila | Thursday
Sweeping dirt under the rug works for surprise guests, but it quietly ruins a home and it does the same thing to your inner life. We get honest about the emotions we hide to look “put together,” and why buried grief and sharp anger don’t disapp...
Self-Guided Meditation Music
Now is your time to simply listen to God's prompting on your heart as you listen to familiar music from our Guided Meditations. God wants to speak to your heart and show you that he loves you despite our flaws and imperfection.&nbs...
Virtual Guided Meditation Retreat | July 18, 19, 2026
Summer is full of movement—vacations, plans, and noise.But what if this July, you paused… just for a moment? 🌿The Virtual Guided Meditation Retreat is your sacred space to breathe, reflect, and reconnect with God—right from ...
Community: Daily Devotion with Dan & Sheila | Wednesday
One lonely thought can snowball into a crisis when it only has your own walls to bounce off. We dig into Pastor Young’s idea that isolation creates an emotional echo chamber, and that Christian discipleship cannot be built on knowledge alone. S...
Scripture: Daily Devotion with Dan & Sheila | Tuesday
Panic has a way of hijacking your direction. One scary thought turns into ten, your body goes into overdrive, and you end up reacting instead of choosing. We start with that exact feeling, like being lost in the woods at night, then follow a su...
Solitude: Daily Devotion with Dan & Sheila | Monday
Silence can feel like the last thing you need when life is loud, but the noise might be the very thing keeping you stuck. We are Dan and Sheila, Pastor Young’s AI co-hosts, and we continue our series Jesus Wants to Shepherd Your Emotions by dig...
Jesus Wants to Shepherd Your Emotions: Deep Dive with Dan & Sheila
We’ve been taught to equate spiritual maturity with calm detachment, but that story collapses the moment you pay attention to Jesus. He doesn’t model emotional flatlining. He models a life that feels deeply and responds wisely. That difference ...
The Jesus No One Talks About Series Pt. 4: Jesus Experienced Loneliness | Friday Devotion
Loneliness can make the world feel smaller and God feel far away. We begin with one of the rawest lines in Scripture, Matthew 27:46, where Jesus cries, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Instead of rushing past the ache, we slow down a...
The Jesus No One Talks About Series Pt. 4: Jesus was Surprised | Thursday Devotion
Jesus marvels. That single word can undo a lot of our assumptions about what God is like. If you’ve ever pictured Jesus as calm but distant, steady but unmoved, we want to offer a more biblical and more personal image: a Saviour who is responsi...
The Jesus No One Talks About Series Pt. 4: The Exhaustion of Jesus | Wednesday Devotion
Some tiredness comes from doing too much. Another kind comes from being misunderstood, carrying feelings you can’t quite translate, or realizing people don’t know what you meant at all. We start with Mark 8:12 and let that scripture give langua...
The Jesus No One Talks About Series Pt. 4: The Anger of Jesus | Tuesday Devotion
Jesus gets angry in Mark 3:5 and that single line can unsettle a lot of us. We’re often taught that anger equals failure, immaturity, or sin, yet the Gospel shows something different: Jesus looks with anger and he also carries grief. That pairi...
The Jesus No One Talks About Series Pt.4: Jesus Wept | Monday Devotion
Jesus doesn’t rush past sorrow. He doesn’t hide his grief, spin it, or keep a stiff upper lip for the crowd. He weeps and that single, honest act can change how we carry loss, how we pray, and how we treat our own emotions.We reflect on...
The Jesus No One Talks About Series Pt. 4: The Emotional Life of Jesus | Deep Dive with Dan & Sheila
We’ve been trained to admire the person who never cracks: the serene face, the steady tone, the spiritual “stiff upper lip”. But when we slow down and actually read the Gospels closely, that image starts to look less like Jesus and more like a ...
The Jesus No One Talks About Series Pt. 3: Rise Into Your Calling | Friday Devotion
“Rise, let us go.” That single line from Matthew 26:46 can feel like a hand on your shoulder when you’re tired, stuck, or unsure what to do next. We sit with Jesus in the garden and notice something subtle but life-changing: after prayer, he st...
The Jesus No One Talks About Series Pt. 3: Jesus Meets Our Weakness With Compassion | Thursday Devotion
Your intentions are real and your faith is real, so why does follow-through feel so hard? We open Matthew 26:41 and sit with Jesus’ words: “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Then we step into the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus w...
The Jesus No One Talks About Series Pt. 3: The Courage To Surrender Wednesday Devotion
One sentence from Jesus can confront everything we try to control: “Yet not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39). We return to Gethsemane not to admire a distant moment, but to learn how surrender to God works when the cost is real and t...
The Jesus No One Talks About Series Pt. 3: The Cup We Wish Would Pass | Tuesday Devotion
Jesus doesn’t hide his dread in the garden. He prays, “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me” (Matthew 26:39), and that one line can change how we think about Christian faith, suffering, and prayer. We sit with Pastor Robert Youn...
The Jesus No One Talks About Series Pt. 3: The Weight Jesus Carried | Monday Devotion
Jesus approaches the cross carrying crushing emotional and spiritual weight and He doesn’t cover it up. We sit with that moment in Gethsemane, imagining the dim garden, the heaviness on His face, and the startling clarity of a Savior who names ...
