Friends, we are talking today about managing your workload through meditation. I love this topic because I have seen it come to pass in many people’s lives in such a powerful way. Oftentimes as a pastor, I’ll have people come to me and share challenges they’re going through, things that they need prayer for or would like encouragement in, and one of those things is having a heavy workload.

Sometimes the pressures of life are high in the workplace and in different arenas, and it can be something that we internalize and we take that care on ourselves. I’m guessing that those of you listening know what I’m talking about. You’ve been in the place where you just feel the responsibility for something to happen, or you just feel a heavy burden. Like, “oh my goodness, I have to come through in this area. This is a really big project!” Or maybe you’re starting a business and you’re thinking, “oh my goodness, I have to make sure this business makes it off the ground, because my family’s livelihood and finances are depending on it!” And I think we can put so much pressure on ourselves that it is unhealthy. Instead, we need to be putting the pressure where it belongs: on God’s Word. We need to be trusting that God’s Word will not return void.

When I say put our trust in God, I’m talking about reading scripture and having a scripture that we meditate, maybe even a couple of scriptures that we meditate to find peace in and to really put our confidence in for God doing the supernatural for us.

I oftentimes meet people who have been Christians all their life, though I’ve also met some that aren’t Christians and don’t know anything about what the Bible says. And whichever boat you’re in today, that’s totally okay. I’m confident you’ll still get some great information out of this today. But with that, I’ve met people who have been Christians for years who don’t realize that God loves you so much. And He wants to get involved with helping you. He wants to get involved in lightening your workload so that you are not internalizing that care about work or whatever burden it is that you’re carrying. That can end up being very unhealthy. God wants to take that care.

There’s a verse in scripture that says, “cast your care upon the Lord, for He cares for you.” (1 Peter 5:7) And friend, I want you to know today that God cares so much for you. He cares down to the last detail, even little bitty details about your life, and He wants to help you manage your workload. So I want to encourage you today with some stories from other people of how meditating the Word has helped with the workload in their life. And in order to do that, I just want to share a couple of scriptures with you from the Bible.

The first one is Joshua 1:8. I’ll just condense this, but it basically says to study the word of God continually and to meditate in it day and night. So that means when you wake up, maybe you’re going to meditate a verse for a little bit, a few minutes, or maybe while you’re getting ready in the morning or driving to work. When you’re going to bed at night, instead of thinking about worries or cares of your workload and “how am I going to make this work?” meditate on a verse. I have personally found–as have other people that I’ve worked with and mentored–that when you meditate the Word, you’re putting the pressure on the Word instead of yourself, and the Word performs. We’ll talk more about that and how that works in a bit.

But in Joshua 1:8, it says, “study the Word of God, continually, meditate in a day and night,” and then it says “you’re going to prosper and succeed in all you do.” And then there’s another spot in Psalm 1, verses 1 and 2. It says, “Blessed is the man” [or you could say ‘the person.’ That’s referring to mankind]–Blessed is the person who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful, but his [or her] delight is in the Law of the Lord [meaning the Word of God], And in His Law [or in God’s word] he meditates day and night.” So here again, it’s saying blessed is the person who meditates God’s Word day and night. They are going to get different results. The person who meditates God’s Word is going to have different results than the person who doesn’t. And that is a huge promise from the Word of God. That’s not me saying it. That is in the Word of God. I just gave you two verses for it!

Now we’re going to talk about a few things today:

1. How to meditate

2. Where you can meditate?

3. What does meditation do?

I want to make sure and cover those three things so it’s super clear for you. But before I get started, I just want to share one meditation story.

I gave a sermon to a women’s group on the power of meditation and what a transformative power it can be in your life. I was especially focusing that day on one specific verse, and it was Philippians 4:13: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Now, I sometimes have people say to me, “well, that scripture was referring to Paul and he was talking about how he can go through suffering through Christ who strengthens him, whether he has a lot or a little food, he can live in whatever state he is and succeed because he can make it through through Christ.” And yes, that was applying to Paul’s situation, but that verse just as much applies to your situation today, friend, because God cares about you just as much as he cared about Paul in the Bible years ago. And I think sometimes that doesn’t compute in people’s brains. They think, “oh, the Bible is just for years ago.” It WAS for years ago, but it IS just as relevant and powerful today in your life when you take those words as your own. And so I was really zooming in and focusing on Philippians 4:13; that you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. You can! You! Whatever it is you’re facing, whatever that heavy workload is, whatever that hard situation is.

Maybe it’s this thing that has been a constant chronic problem in your life and you just can’t figure out how to get through it. You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. You can, you can, you can, you can.

Focus on that. Meditate on that.

And we’re going to talk about how to meditate in a minute, but focus on “you can.” You can do all things through Christ, Jesus living in you. You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you.

And it was interesting because, sometime later, I was contacted by a woman who was at that ladies event. And she shared with me that she was a business owner, had a small business. And she said that every year doing her taxes was like a barracuda to her. It was just so difficult and such a struggle for her. And she dreaded it. She had anxiety about it. And the workload of the taxes was so much for her. And it would usually take her three days or so. And like I said, it was just a small business, but she did have a lot of taxes to do for that. And she said, “I decided, since tax season was coming up, to try meditating Philippians 4:13 and doing what you taught in your message that day,” and she said, “this was by far the easiest tax year I’ve ever had in my life since becoming a business owner!” She told me that, about a week before, she started meditating that scripture for several minutes in the morning, afternoon, evening. Whenever the thought of doing taxes would surface in her mind she would start saying, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. That means I can do taxes through Christ who strengthens me. It’s going to be lighter and easier this year than it’s ever been, because I’m going to be doing it through Christ who strengthens me. So I’m strong to do those taxes. That means it will be better than ever before!” And she said she kept meditating that every day. Just little bits throughout the day, not even huge amounts of time, but little bits. Whenever she would think about it, she would say it several times in her mind or out loud. And she said that when she did her taxes, it took less than one day.

It went quick. It was easy. It was not stressful.

And she said, “I was absolutely amazed! When you shared that about meditation, I did not think it would have that big of an impact, but it did!”

And so I want to encourage you that, what God did for her, He will do for you in whatever area you are going through, whatever the challenge is with your workload. Whatever that burden is that you’ve been carrying with your workload, internalizing that thinking it’s all on you, you know what? Put it all over on God through meditation. Of course, you’re going to do all you can to be the great employer or business owner or employee or doctor or teacher or nurse or mom, (for the guys who are listening, a great dad). You’re going to do whatever you can to be great at that and keep growing in that area, but don’t take the care of it or the pressure of it. Put that care over on God.

So let’s look at a couple of things here.

Number one, how do we meditate?

There are multiple ways to meditate, different teachings out there about that, but I’m talking about scriptural meditation here today. And so I would say practice peace.

When I’m going to meditate something, I just like to take a moment to breathe and make sure I’m at a peaceful state, whether I’m driving in the car, whether I’m going to sleep at night, whether I’m just sitting in my chair in my office, I’m just going to take a moment to breathe and then I’m going to quietly mutter the verse because in the original scripture text, meditate means to mutter quietly to yourself. And so I will get to that peaceful state, and then I’m going to quietly mutter whatever that verse is, focusing on different words as I go. And if you’ve heard other podcasts of mine, you’ve heard me talk about this, that I focus on whatever word is standing out to me and I’ll focus on different words as I go throughout it.

So I might say, “I can. I can,” like I was just talking about, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” And I may do that for two minutes, five minutes, 10 minutes, maybe longer, however long it’s on my heart and however much time I have. And I may do that throughout the day with different verses, whatever’s on my heart that day.

But often I’ll find myself meditating one verse for a whole day and I may meditate one specific verse over different topics in my life. So focus on different words as you go. That is how I would encourage you to meditate.

And then where can you meditate? You can meditate anywhere, my friend. You can meditate in your thoughts, even when other people are around, you don’t have to say it out loud. I think it helps to say it out loud oftentimes.

But if I’m in a public place and I just feel like I need to get my faith in a certain place for something, I’ll start meditating the word in my head and in my thoughts. But you can do this when you’re waking up, getting ready, or even driving. You can do this with your kids in the back seat of the car, just quietly meditating to yourself or meditating in your head.

So you can meditate anywhere you’re at, which is a huge benefit of this because it will do amazing things in your life.

And that’s number three. What does meditation do?

Meditation brings you to a place of deeper trust and inner calm.

That’s what I have experienced myself, when casting my cares on God. You may be carrying this heavy burden of work or a care about family, a care about your marriage, maybe a care about your finances or your health. With meditation I personally have experienced that it helps me to just get to that place of trusting God, where I ultimately want to be all the time and having this inner peace and inner calm, where I’m just really putting the care over on Him.

And it also is a way we partner with God and we invite His power to work in us and for us. You know, it’s inviting God’s supernatural intervention. I love that.

As we speak His Word and declare His Word, it gets down in our heart. It isn’t just in our thoughts then. It actually, the more we meditate it, it gets in our heart. And our heart is where we really trust from and have confidence from. And so as you get the Word meditated and in your heart, you’re going to see God’s power at work, not only in you, but for you. Even external things come in your way to cause supernatural intervention.

I want to explain to you how that works. If you’re wondering, “how can things happen on the outside of my life for supernatural intervention?” That can be explained in two verses from scripture that I’m going to share with you. One is Hebrews 1:14, and this is talking about angels. It says, “Are they not all ministering spirits [in other words, angels] sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation?” So it’s saying that angels are here on earth around us and they are sent forth to us, to those who have received Christ, to those who will inherit salvation.

And I want to add to this, that children are born with an angel assigned to them. There’s a verse in the Bible that talks about how young children, their angel’s face is always before the Lord (Matthew 10:18). And so there are angels assigned to us from birth.

Now, I believe there are things we can do as we get older to cause our angels to not be able to work on our behalf, as we get to a place of making our own choices in our life, whether we’re choosing to live for God and for the right things, or if we are choosing to go all out with evil, those kinds of things can affect how much our angels can help us. And that’s confirmed in Psalm 103, verse 20. It says, “…angels who excel in strength, who do God’s Word, heeding the voice of His Word.” So this verse is explaining to us that angels excel in strength. They’re super strong. We can’t see them typically.

I know a few people who have seen their angels, very honest people. My mom is one of them. So I know people that have seen their angel and it says that these angels are extra strong, stronger than any human. And these angels do God’s Word. That’s their assignment is they’re assigned to be here on earth to do God’s Word, heeding the voice of His Word.

And this right here is one of the biggest reasons, I believe, that we are supposed to meditate the Word of God. Because as we speak the Word of God, angels are instructed to be going about in the earth, listening for the Word of God being spoken and hearkening to answer the Word of God being spoken. So this is where the external power comes in when you’re meditating the Word and angels hear you meditating the Word because they can hear the Word of God coming at them in the spiritual realm. And when they hear you speaking the Word of God over whatever you’re speaking it over, they are instructed to come on the scene where the Word of God is being spoken and bring divine intervention for you or whatever situation you’re meditating the Word over. And so there is so much power when you meditate the Word, when you speak it over you and over your situation.

You know, I remember another story that I want to share with you about a young man that my husband, Shaun and I used to know. And he worked at a health club selling memberships during college for about 20 hours a week, he told us. And he would pray that God would help him to do in 20 hours more than what all the other salespeople could do in 40 hours. And he would meditate verses like Psalm 5:12, which says, “you bless the Godly and surround them with favor as a shield.” So he would do things like be meditating throughout the day whenever he thought about it, going to work, coming from work. “Lord, thank you that you surround me with a shield of favor and I’m doing more in 20 hours than other people do in 40.” Or he might meditate other verses.

One he said he used, I believe, was 2 Corinthians 2:14 that says, “Thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge everywhere.” And so he was saying, “thank You, God, that You always lead me to triumph in sales. And I thank You that when I am at work, the people who are ready to buy memberships are coming in. That You’re sending them when I am at work, whether it’s a Monday morning that isn’t even busy normally, or whether it’s a Wednesday night or sometime that’s normally an off time, I thank You that when I am available and scheduled to work that You are sending the people who are ready to buy. And You always cause me to triumph. And I thank You that I am doing in sales in 20 hours what others do in 40 and even more than that.” Almost every single month, he had the record for the most sales, even over those who are full time.

And that shows the power of angelic intervention right there. He was meditating the Word. He was praying over it.

He was meditating it. And God sent angels to intervene and draw people in who wanted memberships. So I want to encourage you that whatever your workload is, whatever that difficult thing is for you that just seems like you’ve been taking all the care of that on your own, and you’ve been worried about whether it’s going to succeed, or you’ve been worried if the plane is going to fly for your new business, or you’ve been concerned laying awake, maybe even at night thinking, “how am I going to figure this out?” or, “how am I going to get the victory or get success in this area? Or how can I work less and have more time with my family?” Things like that are done through meditation.

People normally don’t have a lot of great success cutting back on workload and still getting all their work done and having enough time with their family, unless they really tap into wisdom for it. And the biggest wisdom you can have for that is meditating the Word of God. So I want to encourage you that Joshua 1:8, meditating the Word of God, “you will have good success” applies to you, my friend, and your workload. And that workload can be lightened and made easier so that you can have the time for your family and friends and to enjoy the life that God created you to enjoy while still being a wildly successful business person or whatever profession you are in. You can still succeed at that and have family life too.

I want to close with praying for you.

Lord, I pray for those listening that are struggling with heavy workloads. And I pray that You would give them peace and grace. And I pray that they would meditate Your Word and they would have good success. Just like it says, Father, that there would be breakthrough that doesn’t just happen in the weeks to come, but even happens in the days to come, that You would give them wisdom, give them supernatural intervention, that they would be able to get more quality time with their family and friends and still be able to achieve greatness, greatness, greatness in their professional calling in Jesus Name. Amen.

Proverbs 11:25 says, “those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed.” So until next time, I declare God’s grace and favor and peace and delightful moments of rest over your week. Talk to you soon!