Thrive
Podcast

Overview

Today on the podcast, Dr. Brian Russell, award-winning professor of biblical studies and former dean at Asbury Theological Seminary, as well as a transformation coach for pastors and spiritually-minded professionals, joined the podcast. He is the author of several books, with his most recent being “Centering Prayer: Sitting Quietly in God’s Presence Can Change Your Life” and is the host of the Deep Dive Spirituality Conversations podcast.

In today’s conversation, Brian talks about his new book “Centering Prayer: Sitting Quietly in God’s Presence Can Change Your Life.” We talk about what centering prayer is, how this practice has helped Brian grow deeper in his relationship with the Lord, some of the gifts he’s received as a result, and how we can start our own journey with this practice.

Brian would love to meet you and your group study virtually! When you buy 15 or more copies of his book for a group study, email him at deepdivespirituality@gmail.com. For the first 10 people to do so, he’ll reply and set up a time to meet you and your group virtually, lead you through a time of centering prayer and do a brief Q&A session. His book can be purchased on Amazon and we’ll link to everything in the show notes.

Let’s listen!

*The views expressed in this podcast don’t necessarily reflect the views of Asbury Seminary.

Dr. Brian Russell, Professor of Biblical Studies

Brian Russell (Ph.D.) is an award winning professor of biblical studies and former dean at Asbury Theological Seminary as well as a transformational coach for pastors and spiritually-minded professionals. His personal mission is to seek out, study, and embody the deepest truths about God so that he can share them compellingly, lovingly, and transformationally with others. He is the author of “The Song of the Sea: The Date of Composition and Influence of Exodus 15:1–21” (Peter Lang, 2007); “Invitation: A Bible Study to Begin With” (Seedbed 2014); “(re)Aligning with God: Reading Scripture for Church and World” (Cascade 2015); and his newly released “Centering Prayer: Sitting Quietly in God’s Presence Can Change Your Life” (Paraclete Press, 2021). He is also host of the Deep Dive Spirituality Conversations podcast.

Heidi Wilcox, host of the Thrive Podcast

Writer, podcaster, and social media manager, Heidi Wilcox shares stories of truth, justice, healing and hope. She is best known as the host of Spotlight, (especially her blooper reel) highlighting news, events, culturally relevant topics and stories of the ways alumni, current students and faculty are attempting something big for God. If you can’t find her, she’s probably cheering on her Kentucky Wildcats, enjoying a cup of coffee, reading or spending time with her husband, Wes.



Transcript

Heidi Wilcox:
Hey everyone. Welcome to this week’s episode of the Thrive with Asbury Seminary podcast. I’m your host, Heidi Wilcox, bringing you conversations with authors, thought leaders and people just like you, who are looking to connect where your passion meets the world’s deep needs. Today on the podcast I’m joined by Dr. Brian Russell, award-winning professor of biblical studies and former Dean at Asbury Seminary, as well as a transformation coach for pastors and spiritually minded professionals. He is the author of several books, with his most recent being, Centering Prayer: Sitting Quietly in God’s Presence Can Change Your Life. And is the host of the Deep Dive Spirituality Conversations podcast.

Heidi Wilcox:
In today’s conversation, Brian and I talk about his new book, Centering Prayer: Sitting Quietly in God’s Presence Can Change Your Life. We talk about what centering prayer is, how this practice has helped Brian grow deeper in his relationship with the Lord. Some of the gifts he’s received as a result and how we can start our own journey with this practice. Brian would love to meet you and your group study virtually. When you buy 15 or more copies of his book for a study, email him at deepdivespirituality@gmail.com. The first 10 listeners to do so he’ll reply to and set up a time to meet you and your group virtually, lead you through a time of centering prayer and do a brief Q&A session.

Heidi Wilcox:
His book can be purchased on Amazon and we’ll link to everything in the show notes. So now let’s listen to my conversation with Dr. Brian Russell. Dr. Russell, I am just delighted to have you on the Thrive with Asbury Seminary podcast. I’m looking forward to getting to know you better and to talk about your new book, Centering Prayer: Sitting Quietly in God’s Presence Can Change Your Life. Thank you so much for being on the show today.

Dr. Brian Russell:
You’re welcome, Heidi. I’m super grateful to be here and please call me just Brian, the rest of the podcast. It’d be fine with me.

Heidi Wilcox:
All right. Thank you. Thank you. Before we get into your book, which I read and really enjoyed. I’m looking forward to discussing that with you. But before we get into that, I want to talk about, how did you come to Asbury Seminary?

Dr. Brian Russell:
Yeah, that’s really two different stories in a way. I first came 30 years ago in the fall of 1991 into the MDiv program. I found out about Asbury because my pastor in the United Methodist Church up in Akron, Ohio, where I grew up. He had gone to Asbury University. He wasn’t able to go to the seminary, but he essentially told me that was the only seminary I should consider, would be Asbury. Over the years, the best pastors that we had my home church were from Asbury. I’d also had the privilege of meeting a lot of missionaries that had gone to Asbury. I just had this recurring theme that was going through my life. I was a student. Came back as a professor. I graduated in 1994. In those days the seminary would give one person a year, the opportunity to teach Greek and Hebrew after they graduated.

Dr. Brian Russell:
Just for example, Fred Long was my counterpart. There was Fred Long and myself back in the fall of 94. That was his second year as a teaching fellow. It was my first year and we worked together for a year. And so I got a taste for teaching, and then I did my PhD and then just circumstances worked out really well. They opened the Orlando campus in 99, needed a Bible professor in 2000, right when I was starting to finish up. I had the real blessing not only to come back to Asbury, but be able to move to Florida and live in Orlando for the last 21 years, serving the seminary from down here. It’s two stories, but that’s how I got to Asbury two different times.

Heidi Wilcox:
That’s awesome. We’re really glad that you’re here. How did you, because I’m curious, because you came for an MDiv and then wound up as a professor. How would you describe your calling?

Dr. Brian Russell:
Yeah. As I’ve thought about that over the years, it’s had some shifts, but one of the things I’ve always been really good at is I’ve always been an excellent student. That’s my gift that God gave me. And so I was always really good in school. But when I initially came to the seminary, I was called to be a pastor and even considered maybe doing some counseling as part of that ministry. When I started taking biblical studies classes and I have to really give credit to some folks that are still here, I had David Bower, Lawson Stone, of course, well, we were all much younger 30 years ago than we are now, but I had Dave Bower, Lawson Stone and John Oswalt. They were real mentors for me.

Dr. Brian Russell:
David Bower especially encouraged me to consider doing a PhD because I was doing so well in school. That’s how I moved into that two year teaching piece. And so in a sense, it was my dream come true. I loved studying the Bible, my entire faith journey up till that point had been through reading scripture and I loved inducted Bible studies. I was good at the biblical languages and really good at exegesis. It was a natural next step. But again, the right doors opened, I was able to get a John Wesley fellowship, which helped to pay for my PhD. I was able to get into a good school. I ended up going, essentially following in the footsteps of David Bower and really Joe Dongell, who both went to Union Seminary. The doors opened there. And so it was, part of my life is like being Forrest Gump. I just been in the right place at the right time.

Dr. Brian Russell:
Met amazing people. I’ve put work in on my end of course, but just doors have opened that. I’ve just walked through them over the years. And so that’s how I moved into teaching. And again, even at that point, I was still going through the ordination process with the United Methodist Church. I served a church while I was in seminary at Asbury. I ended up serving a church while I was doing my PhD. I still wasn’t certain that I was going to end up being a professor. I just knew academically, and it’s from a gift perspective that I owed it to myself and maybe even to the Lord and to the kingdom to at least maximize my education, whether I ended up being a pastor scholar or ended up being a scholar like I am now who still serves local churches as often as I can.

Heidi Wilcox:
Right. And you educate future pastors or lay leaders, whatever they might be doing too.

Dr. Brian Russell:
Yes.

Heidi Wilcox:
I really like how you describe your calling as just wanting to use your gifts and talents in whatever way the Lord would have you and following those open doors. I think that’s really cool.

Dr. Brian Russell:
That’s freeing too, because a lot of folks get caught up that God’s will is just one little linear, tiny, narrow path that if you miss it, that you mess your life up. And in a sense it’s really just, like Bob Tuttle, he used to be at the seminary too, he’s emeritus, but he was one of my best friends when he was in Orlando. He always just said, the key to life is show up, pay attention, God has way more invested in this than you do. I think that’s a way to think about God’s will. We all have gifts and to show up and serve people. I’ve just found if you will show up and serve people and do things that nobody else will do, there’s always a place for you and the doors miraculously open somehow.

Heidi Wilcox:
Right. Right. That is a beautiful way to look at it, because I have been stuck at times in what you just described and it’s freeing to realize I can’t exactly get this wrong if I’m willing to serve other people.

Dr. Brian Russell:
Yes. Yeah.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. I want to get into your book a little bit. Centering Prayer. I’ve heard of before, we had this conversation before I read your book, which is excellent. I know you don’t need my validation or approval, but just reading it. I’ve actually tried to start my own practice of it, not just because you were going to talk today, but because as I read up, my soul was crying out for more and wanting to connect in a deeper way with Jesus. How did centering prayer become important in your life?

Dr. Brian Russell:
I did not grow up with centering prayer, a matter of fact, I didn’t grow up knowing a lot about different contemplative spiritual practices. I was really what I would call meat and potatoes Christian. I did a lot of reading the scripture, obviously as a Bible professor I prayed, attended church, did small groups, all that kind of things. That served me really well. We have to say that centering prayer doesn’t substitute for any of the classic means of grace.

Heidi Wilcox:
Of course, yeah.

Dr. Brian Russell:
I would consider this an enhancement in something that can allow you to grow even deeper. But for me, I like to say, it wasn’t so much that I found silence and solitude practices as they actually found me. They came into my life at just a critical, painful time back in, I’m not going to go real deep into this, but essentially I was going on sabbatical in the fall of 2010. Essentially overnight I had just celebrated my 20th anniversary of being married and I found myself suddenly single. It was truly devastating. I just had an arrow shot into my heart. Again, the next year was incredibly difficult for me at just massive amounts of levels. I was just overwhelmed with anxiety, fear, guilt, shame.

Dr. Brian Russell:
I’m wondering, am I going to be able to continue to teach the seminary? What’s going to happen to my ministry? What’s going to happen to my kids? What’s going to happen to me? Am I going to have enough resources? I was just in this spiral. It was in the midst of that, that I had a couple of just really powerful moments, including one, when I was just out in the walk, a friend had told me, hey, you sound like you’re going crazy, Brian. I kind of was, I’m really good at thinking. And so my brain was just buzzing. I always talk fast, I’m from the Midwest. And so I don’t know, I must have just been in hyper drive that day. So I just go out for a walk. I did take an iPad or whatever I had back in 2010s. I was just walking and I wasn’t doing my professor slouch. I was just trying to look around.

Dr. Brian Russell:
It was like, for a split second, when I was walking on a sidewalk that walked many, many times, everything just froze. My world went almost from black and white to color. I heard a bird singing and I sulked, it sounds so strange, but I just remember seeing leaves on a tree, I could smell flowers. I really just was there 100% and I wasn’t scared in that split second. I literally, it felt as though God was just reassuring me of love. And again, I’m not claiming to have heard audible voices, but it was just a sense that there’s enough, Brian, God is enough for you and you’re going to get through this. That was powerful, Heidi. As I process that, it’s like, geez, I wish that could happen every day is what I remember thinking.

Dr. Brian Russell:
At that time I just found out about silence, meditative prayer, which I come to later recognize as centering prayer. I didn’t even know it was called centering prayer then. I tried to sit in silence every day and some level it was really good for me because I was hurt so bad on the inside that I couldn’t sing for a long time when I went to worship. It took a long time before I was able to sing a little bit in chapel for example. But when I said in silence, God used that silence and that silent meditative prayer to essentially heal me of my hurt and grow me in love. Basically in the silence, I experienced greater encounters with God’s love in a sense that God was inviting me into deeper and deeper experiences.

Dr. Brian Russell:
When I look back, that was probably the darkest time in my life, but there was a glimmer of light, which was centering prayer that led me, it’s been 11 years now on this journey of, I would call it a sanctifying journey, to use our Wesleyan language. That turned me, I’m still a Bible professor, still intellectual, but in a sense it attached my head firmly onto my body, so that I can show up and still be just as good of, well, actually I’m a better teacher than I used to be. I was pretty good teacher, because I won teacher of the year back 2005. It’s not like I wasn’t a good teacher, but it’s like I’m more fully present with students and I’m not in a hurry like I used to be.

Dr. Brian Russell:
I wrote this book essentially to serve other people, hopefully everybody avoids that disaster that I experience personally. But the idea is, we’re in this COVID time. And again, I wrote the book before this, but we’ve all experienced all this anxiety, pain, since we’ve all been turned into monks, that sometimes we’re so isolated. Centering prayer, and you can also do prayer of examine, which is like a journaling practice. You can do some other silence, lectio divina is a way to use the scriptures in silence. These silence and solitude practices that go way back into the early church are resources that, again, for me, I didn’t know about this stuff till I was in my 40s. And so I wrote the book to give people tools, so that they can build spiritual muscles that they don’t, didn’t even know they had because that was my story.

Dr. Brian Russell:
And so, in a sense I can look back, super grateful for what happened to me in the sense that in the rebuild of my life, God’s been able to do deeper work than God might have been able to do if what happened to me didn’t happen to me.

Heidi Wilcox:
That’s beautiful, how extremely difficult times can be redeemed if we’re willing to do the work. Not that we have to work it out, but we have to show up for it, is what I’m trying to say. For those of us who are like me before I read your book and like you a little over a decade ago, what is centering prayer?

Dr. Brian Russell:
Centering prayer is kind of a shorthand. If you just do the history, that phrase just goes back about 50 years, but it really has really extremely deep roots in the church. Some people call it the prelude, the contemplative prayer, but essentially all centering prayer is, and it’s super simple to describe, but you have to practice it. And there’s certain obstacles and challenges that you’ll experience almost immediately when you start, it is nothing more than nothing less than, close sitting and somewhere comfortably, closing your eyes. I like to start with a Jesus prayer. Not everybody does this, but I want this to be a distinctively Christian experience of course. I always just say, Lord, Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner, come Lord Jesus.

Dr. Brian Russell:
And then I sit with my eyes closed. I set a timer, I have a Fitbit. You can use a phone, but you want some quiet thing that won’t scare you when it goes off. And you essentially just take some breaths and sit in silence, you select a prayer word in advance. I would just suggest everybody uses Jesus because that’s who we’re praying to. But some folks may find a different word like God or love or whatever, but I really encourage people to use Jesus, because that’s who we’re praying to. You sit there in silence with your eyes closed. You’re not praying, this isn’t you praying to God now, this is you saying I’m going to surrender whatever comes into my mind, to God, so I can essentially just sit with God and not even let thoughts interrupt my encounter with God.

Dr. Brian Russell:
Now, I have to be careful with what I just said, because the goal of this isn’t to erase your mind, because that does not happen. But it’s simply to be aware of how much chatter goes on in your mind. Some of it’s beautiful thoughts, some of it’s insignificant thought. Sometimes it’s really troubling thoughts, which we may talk about at some point. Whenever you find yourself in a thought loop, which will be almost the entire time, you just simply in your mind use Jesus, you’re not going, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. It’s not a brain frying mantra thing, but you just reminding yourself and calling out to the Lord that I’m going to surrender this thought because I just want to sit with you. Not my thoughts. I want to sit with God.

Dr. Brian Russell:
That’s the practice and you do that for, again, you can start with one minute or five minutes. I try to do 20 minutes at least once every day. And sometimes I do it multiple times a day, it just depends, but I try to do 20. I would encourage people just to go for it and do it, because I think it took me a while. I spent a lot of time gearing up to get to 20 minutes. I would just say, just try it, but really even if you only have five, do five, because this is a practice that again, if you do it consistently over time, God really can do deep work in your life. We don’t force God to do it. This isn’t manipulation. But if you sit in silence with God, God is going to work on your insides. I would say, God does almost a Thomas Keating who was one of the Catholic priests that started this. He talked about God doing, using this as divine therapy.

Dr. Brian Russell:
It just opens us up for deeper and deeper and experiences of God’s grace. And it confronts us with the stuff on our insides. Often that shows up as guilt, shame, fear, that causes us to be like Adam and even hide behind the trees when God comes looking for us. He’s releasing. A lot of times that’ll show up on our thoughts. And so the idea, there’s four Rs that are the shorthand for doing it, centering prayer it’s you resist no thought. You don’t get freaked out that your brain’s chattering, that’s how our minds work. But then you don’t retain the thought either. So when you realize you’re in a thought, which again, most of the time you just break it up with the prayer word, you don’t react to any thought.

Dr. Brian Russell:
That’s the harder part because sometimes, you may have, like I talk about in the book, when I’d be sitting in silence with God, I would just be, I’d relive past wrongs against me and I’d find myself really angry. But instead of suppressing that, I realize, wow, I’m sitting with Jesus and all this anger is coming out of me. What do I need to do? I just give it to God, give it to Jesus. So I use the prayer word and release that. So which we don’t react to a thought by suppressing it, you just let it go, and you gently return with your word back to God. That’s what centering prayer is.

Heidi Wilcox:
When those thoughts come up, is it returning with our prayer word? Because that’s the part that has me stumped, because I’ve been in thought loops ever since I’ve started this practice. How does that release work? Because that’s where I’m getting a little stuck, is like, I think these things a return with my prayer word and I think I’m getting a little impatient that I’ve been doing it for a week and I don’t feel like anything’s happening.

Dr. Brian Russell:
No, no. No.

Heidi Wilcox:
I know that’s not the point. I’m saying it tongue in cheek and our listeners can’t see my smile. But I get what I’m saying.

Dr. Brian Russell:
The metaphor that I to use for this is, again, I love to exercise also. Right? And so if you think of a centering prayer session as, again, this isn’t a perfect metaphor, but as a gym session. And so, you don’t always feel like going to the gym, not every gym session is actually good. Sometimes you really struggle. But the whole thing is, is you put the reps in. And so in a sense, even if, I have a chapter in my vote called how to fail at centering prayer.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yes. Can you fail at centering prayer?

Dr. Brian Russell:
Only if you don’t do it. That’s the thing. And so you actually struggling with different types of thoughts is the actual practice and you’re surrendering those to God. Right? And so even the times when you have to use your prayer word, again, I’ve never counted, because that would be a thought that I’m trying to release. But let’s say in 20 minutes you have to use the prayer word, I don’t know, 50 times. I’m just throwing a number out there. I have no idea what it really is. You got to return to Jesus 50 times. 50 times you’ve actually said, Lord, me sitting with you in silence is more important than what’s going on in my head.

Heidi Wilcox:
That’s beautiful.

Dr. Brian Russell:
When you think about that, that’s what we’re actually doing. It’s literally surrender, that’s the whole point of the practice, is to surrender and sit with God with no expectations. We’re not, again, we don’t expect Jesus to come down and give us this massive revelation every time, it’s just me surrendering myself to God in silence, for again, however long you want to do the practice. Does that help a little bit? Would that help you as you get going on all this?

Heidi Wilcox:
That really does. Thank you.

Dr. Brian Russell:
You’re welcome.

Heidi Wilcox:
Before we get too much further, I want listeners to understand how this practice differs from other types of meditations used in other religions.

Dr. Brian Russell:
Yeah. And this is a critical question, because I think one of the reasons I didn’t know about centering prayer and even in a sense why I probably pushed it away because we do, for example, at Asbury Seminary, we use this in a counseling program. And so counseling students spend a semester keeping a prayer journal and doing this at least for a semester and we even train the students. But I always thought, wow, isn’t that new agey or doesn’t that make me a Buddhist or something? Right. Listeners may be thinking about that. And if you listen to a lot of business podcast, a lot of entrepreneurs do transcendental meditation, which was very popular, that’s kind of a Hindu form. And so it’s really critical to recognize that when we say silent, meditative prayer, we’re not switching religions or simply becoming new age in some ways. Right?

Dr. Brian Russell:
The key distinction is because as Christians, we believe in a transcendent, holy God of love who stands outside of creation, right? That’s the key difference between Christianity and say Eastern religions. And so when we do centering prayer, we’re not just peering inside of ourselves as though we are already God to discover that truth, which might be part of another religious tradition. We’re actually sitting with the transcendent creator God, who came to earth as the person of Jesus Christ. And now has since forth the spirits, we’re engaging the triune God. And so our intention, isn’t just navel-gazing, as you might say, our intention is to sit with the God who’s really there, who love of us so much that he died for us.

Dr. Brian Russell:
That’s the key distinction. Now, if you go and look at comparison, a lot of people do mindfulness based meditation. There’s similarities on the techniques, but the tell us the intention is the key distinction that makes a Christian practice versus something else. Just to be fair. Does that help a little bit?

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, that makes total sense. Thank you. Thank you for that.

Dr. Brian Russell:
You’re welcome.

Heidi Wilcox:
You mentioned Thomas Keating and divine therapy little bit earlier, and I love that image. And so thinking about that, what do you know about God’s love through centering prayer that you didn’t know before you started this practice?

Dr. Brian Russell:
The transformational insight that I received in the silence. I try, as a Wesleyan, I partially think of this as the witness of the spirit, is that I know, and I knew this at some level in my head since I was a little boy when I gave my life to Jesus. But in centering prayer, God removed, I would say my self imposed blocks, which have to do with a lot of shame about the way I grew up, fear and even guilt. A lot of the guilt would be a false type of guilt, because obviously we’re forgiven in Christ. And if, obviously we have sins in our lives, we need to repent of those sins and open ourselves up for healing. But a lot of us still, I call this stand Holy Trinity, we have these deep fears that there isn’t enough.

Dr. Brian Russell:
And so we have to strive and grab for stuff rather than trust. We have a false guilt that we don’t do enough. This is so true for most pastors that I know and that I work with. I have a coaching program for pastors and I see this in our students at the seminary. We just think we don’t do enough, so we’re always trying to prove something. That was my core wound growing up is, I always, I had to prove that I was worthy and that’ll tear your spiritual life to pieces long term. And then there’s a shame that I’m just not good enough. I would say for me, a lot of guilt, a lot of shame, I don’t do enough, and I’m just not good enough.

Dr. Brian Russell:
What this centering prayer has done for me over time, and it’s been over time, this was not a quick fix, is I experienced what, and again, we don’t talk about Paul Tillich the 20th century theologian, a lot at Asbury, because he’s kind of a neo-orthodox person. But I love, he has this great definition of grace, which again, whatever else he writes in all those other books, I’ll let other people judge that. But I love his definition of grace. He says, it’s accepting the fact that you’re unconditionally accepted.

Heidi Wilcox:
That’s hard to do.

Dr. Brian Russell:
Yes, but I can testify to everybody listening, but that’s what’s centering prayer gave me.

Heidi Wilcox:
Oh wow.

Dr. Brian Russell:
It cut through my fear, my guilt and my shame that again, Jesus has covered that with his death on the cross, his resurrection a long time ago. But a lot of us, David Siemens, who was one of my teachers, I was in his last class before he retired back in 1992. He always talked about the frozen chosen in the churches that they’re Christians, they got junk and they’re frozen. I would have to say, I must have been a frozen chosen even despite the fact that I was a pastor and even a professor for a long time. But the divine therapy is essentially an experience of God’s love that then penetrates our soul and what that does, Heidi, we can think of it in some level is sanctification, different way of talking about sanctification that we are able to expand in because we’re fully immersed in God love.

Dr. Brian Russell:
Then what does that do for us? It helps us to love God more, helps us to love our neighbors more. But that is rooted and allows us to love ourselves, which can sound narcissistic, except in this case, it’s not. We can love ourselves, not for our own sake, that would be narcissism. We can love ourselves for God’s sake, because I’m going to probably make myself cry a little bit here. So I apologize if I lose this, because to me this is the powerful thing. Centering prayer, lets you see yourself the way that God sees you and that is healing. That’s what it did for me.

Dr. Brian Russell:
That’s actually why I wrote the book, because at some level, I’ve been a Christian. When I was a little boy went to the altar, when I was eight, I had a powerful experience that led to me being called to the seminary when I was 15. What’s happened to me in the silence was almost felt like I got saved all over again in, and it was all about, suddenly for whatever, knowing that I’m God’s beloved, that despite the mistakes, the hurt, even my successes in life that I’m loved apart from all of those things and that God is fully for us. That’s what that divine therapy actually gets that, but it hacks through all the junk in your life to get to that point, I got to say.

Heidi Wilcox:
Wow. Centering prayer allows you to see yourself as God sees you.

Dr. Brian Russell:
Yeah. And again-

Heidi Wilcox:
I can’t get over that.

Dr. Brian Russell:
I think the key way to say that, is that’s not the goal, but that’s a result. The goal is-

Heidi Wilcox:
That’s one of the gifts.

Dr. Brian Russell:
… to sit with God, but that’s one of the gifts that comes out of that kind of intimacy with God.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. That’s beautiful. As we’re sitting with God, you were talking about in your book, many of us and I’m quoting you here. Many of us have never integrated our rational minds, unconscious minds, deepest emotions and physical bodies. A lack of doing that, subverts our public commitments as we fail to live out what we actually believe. How does centering prayer help us integrate ourselves and then carry the gifts of the five minutes, the 15 minutes, the 20 minutes with us the rest of the day?

Dr. Brian Russell:
Yeah. And again, this was my experience, because, again, I don’t want to make it sound like I wasn’t a Christian. I wasn’t authentic before, because that’s not what we’re saying at all, right?

Heidi Wilcox:
Right. No, no, this is just going deeper.

Dr. Brian Russell:
It’s taking a step deeper. Now, for me, again, the way that my I’m wired is I used to joke that, who was I? You could just basically chop my head off, don’t think about that too hard. But basically put it on a box and as long as I could still talk, that would be me. Because I was, I pretty much associate myself with my thoughts and I always thought theology was a set of descriptions to affirm and to understand. If I could just understand theology better, understand what the church was supposed to be better, that would be authentic. And again, I’m exaggerating. But when I went through that, just the trauma of the whole divorce thing, one of the gifts that allowed me to do, and it was a gift from God is, early on I’m like, geez, I thought to myself and I’m so grateful to the Lord for this. Is like, I have to come out on the other side of this a better man, no matter what happens.

Dr. Brian Russell:
And so I wanted to be better, not better. Early on, I had this mindset that I was going to take 100% responsibility for my side of the whole thing. Not be a victim, not have anybody go, whoa is me, poor Brian. It’s like, no, I’m going to own, whether it was 1% my fault or 100% my fault. I was owning everything on my end. [crosstalk 00:31:16]. I prayed to God. Well, yeah. It’s courage, but I trusted the Lord on this one. I had a prayer, it’s an affirmation. I still use this. I use some affirmation, some Lord bring all of the darkness on my insides into your lights, so that I can be healed. That was my openness to that. Actually I’m forgetting the exact question I’m answering now, but that was the backdrop. What am I trying to land this thing?

Heidi Wilcox:
You’re doing it great.

Dr. Brian Russell:
Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Heidi Wilcox:
We’re talking about the integration and how the 20 minutes, how we can carry that with us the rest of the day.

Dr. Brian Russell:
Yeah. Thank you. Sorry listeners, my brain just shifted around. This is real personal. It’s hard to get through some of this sometimes.

Heidi Wilcox:
It’s all good. I feel you were answering the question even though you weren’t.

Dr. Brian Russell:
Let me add the little cherry on top of the questioning, because those were the mindsets that I had. Right? And so what I noticed, I noticed my body literally, I had these, my chest was always tight. I was super stiff because between my shoulder blades and I could feel butterflies in my stomach all the time. I thought to myself, everything else in my life has just been shattered at some level. Wouldn’t it be amazing if I can open up my body to God and be healed of that stuff. Because maybe I don’t have to be tight chested, anxious all the time. Maybe I don’t have to be so doggone stiff in all my muscles. What I realized is I was holding a lot of my own trauma, guilt, shame and fear inside my own body.

Dr. Brian Russell:
And so part of the centering prayer actually has, again, I’m not going to pretend I’m a yoga person that can do all these stretches or anything like that. I’m still pretty stiff comparatively speaking, but not like I used to be and I don’t feel the pain all the time in my body like I used to. I don’t feel as much tension in my chest and now I’m actually super aware of it when it does pop in. It was more of, that’s what I consider to be the integration. I’m not just living the Christian faith in my head, it’s encompassing in my whole body so that I can show up. I like to show up and pay attention. I’m not distracted by my own body. It’s not something I have to escape from. I’m an embodied soul.

Dr. Brian Russell:
That’s how I’m trying to live. And the centering prayer just helped me integrate that all together. And then the key last piece is, I’ve always been the mission guy and people know me for my missional approach to scripture and some of my earlier teaching, but that’s the whole point. The gospel comes to us on its way to someone else. And now this person, Brian who’s on mission, I think is bringing a more integrated whole version of himself into that mission, so that when I share the gospel I’m sharing a lot less on my own junk as part of the gospel. And people are hopefully getting a more authentic version of, in my case, what a Christian man ought to be like. That’s my prayer at least.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yes, definitely. You are leading me right into my next question. With your coaching, you also do spiritual direction, is that correct?

Dr. Brian Russell:
Well, sort of, I’m not officially a spiritual director, but what I do is, I do group, I do mostly group coaching with pastors. I do do one on one things, but I help pastors to work on their spiritual formation practices, their leadership practices, so that they can essentially thrive and flourish in their ministries and have a place where they can come 100% focus on becoming transparent, authentic, and better prepared to be able to serve the people that God’s given them the privilege to serve.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yes, definitely. How has centering prayer in this practice enabled you to share more of your true self with others, with your coaching and with your teaching and the other types of ministries that you’re doing?

Dr. Brian Russell:
Well, the centering prayer has, again, this is an effect, not so much the purpose of it again, but-

Heidi Wilcox:
Right. Right. I hope I’m not misrepresenting that in my questions because I understand the point is to sit with Jesus, because we’ve sat with him.

Dr. Brian Russell:
I’m not even trying to correct you, it’s just, I’m always really careful, because I don’t want this to sound this is 10 days to a quick fix or anything like that or it’s even just like, it’s not like I’m hawking a personal development plan or something either.

Heidi Wilcox:
I’m so glad for that distinction. Because we all have had enough of the do this to be a better Christian, do anything to be a better leader, 10 easy steps for everything. I appreciate that so much.

Dr. Brian Russell:
Centering prayer is a wonderful step towards having a transformed life and I 100% believe if folks would embrace this practice or again, there’s other solitude practices that would allow everybody listening to grow even deeper in the Lord, I have no question about that. But we’re playing long game, these aren’t quick fixes. How it’s helped me is this gets into the healing parts again, is, in prison they use solitary confinement to break people, right? It’s because when you sit, when you’re alone, you turn on yourself and your thoughts, if you’re all by yourself, can essentially drive you crazy or he can be tormented by them.

Dr. Brian Russell:
I use a quotation, even from a Friedrich Nietzsche, who’s an atheist, he’s the guy that said was dead and he talks about how most of us don’t want to sit in silence because we’re afraid somebody’s going to whisper something in our ear. So we numb ourselves with entertainment stuff. That’s what most of our world does. And even Christians, we numb ourselves with activity. I’m going to do this, I’m going to do that. I’m going to do more practice. Silence just strips all that away and you’re literally sitting there again with God. You’ve become confronted with your interior life and there’s beautiful things in there. Right? And so, one of my favorite prayers is God helped me believe the truth about myself, no matter how wonderful it is. We have to say that.

Dr. Brian Russell:
That’s part of the beauty that we see ourselves as God sees us. But what the monastics discovered and a lot of my book, I translate some of the insights from the earliest church and our readers, our listeners know about the seven deadly sins, but the so-called seven deadly sins were actually rooted in the silence and solitude practices of the earliest monastics, because people gave up everything to go out in the desert to be alone with God. They discovered all the things they thought they were fleeing from were actually inside of them.

Heidi Wilcox:
Oh yeah.

Dr. Brian Russell:
And so this is the healing part, right? I use Evagrius Ponticus eight evil or distracting thoughts. He was a monastic and he was a scholar. He kept track of, he was observing what people encountered. You just hear the eight distracting thoughts that this became the seven. It was gluttony, greed, lust. That was one level. And then anger, spiritual laziness or sloth or spiritual sadness. That’s the second level. And then the bottom, he had two different words for pride. Again, he had Greek words, but we’d bring these in English as pride, which is essentially a sense of superiority over other people. Look how great I am now that I’m sitting in silence or vein glory where you want other people to praise you for how awesome you are. Right?

Dr. Brian Russell:
And so when you sit in silence, some of the thoughts and feelings, these are what we would call, this is what Keating would’ve called, the disturbing thoughts. This is the off where the healing takes place. It’s your unconscious, or however you want to think about that. I’m not a professional psychologist. And some of this is mystery, but our insides, those things will come up in your mind. Those are the things you have to release to God, like I mentioned earlier, anger, right? Well guess what, it’s right there, is one of those evil thoughts, right? You’ll be confronted with the truth about yourself. And you discover that God is just inviting you to hand those things to him. That’s how you get transformed slowly over time and that frees you then, because if you’re not rejected by God, right?

Dr. Brian Russell:
I’ve even had lustful thoughts when I was supposed to be sitting in silence, I put this in the book. I realized, I’m like, oh my gosh, something’s wrong with me. I didn’t know that this happened. I was just doing this without a lot of instruction. But once I found out, I’m like, oh my gosh, God was just working on me when that happened. Instead I was thinking, I’m so angry, I even had lustful thoughts. What am I? God’s going to zap me with a lightning bow or something. Right? But God doesn’t, right?

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. No.

Dr. Brian Russell:
And when you can hand those things, and that comes out of our hearts and our insights, when you hand those things to God, you realize, wow, God loves me. If God loves me, I can show up to every person that I meet, not ashamed anymore, not feeling guilty, not feeling fearful. It lets you be more transparent with people and be authentically present. Most people know me that I’m pretty much a straight shooter, in some ways I always have been, but I’m able to share more deep ways out of my own pain and struggles, simply because God let me give all that stuff to him as I sat in silence.

Heidi Wilcox:
And you’re not carrying it in the same way anymore.

Dr. Brian Russell:
Yeah. Yeah. I can still feel it. I’ve done a lot of podcasts for this and I’ve had to reexperience that dark period, but for most of the time, it’s almost like I’m talking about somebody different because I’ve been healed and that period now means something different because I’ve actually seen, it wasn’t instantly and it was really hard on my kids, I have to say too. But for me it, it allowed me to grow. And so it’s changed its meaning.

Heidi Wilcox:
With the release, when the angry thoughts, fullness, full thoughts, the whatever, the grief thoughts.

Dr. Brian Russell:
Prideful thoughts, all that stuff. Yeah.

Heidi Wilcox:
Right. All those things when they come up, is the release simply saying a prayer word?

Dr. Brian Russell:
Yes.

Heidi Wilcox:
I’m a try hard Christian and I’m recovering from that. It seems so simple and yet so hard at the same time, but that’s all we have to do.

Dr. Brian Russell:
Let me just say a little bit about, because it is all we have to do. Because again, centering prayer is really easy, but here’s the thing that you have to do. And that’s where those four Rs are so important. It’s that react to no thought. I have in the book, I used two movie illustrations. I have a chapter called entering the cave. I’m old enough, I go back to the original Star Wars movies. An empire strikes back, you have this really interesting scene when Yoda is training Luke Skywalker, he sends Luke into this. It seems like it’s a simulator, but he has to go in this cave and in the cave, Luke has to confront the truth about himself. He’s fighting, who he thinks is Darth Vader.

Dr. Brian Russell:
And if you remember, he strikes him with the light saver and then Vader’s mask comes off. And what does Luke see? He sees his own face. Right? That was pretty upsetting for him. Right? And then there’s another scene. I love the Lord of the Rings also. I think this is in the Return of the King, the third of the movies. It’s when the oak army is attacking, I think the last human city. Gandalf the wizard is there. One of the Hobbits is there with a bunch of the humans and they’re just waiting, there’s a battering ramp smashing against the gate. On the other side, literally the forces of hell are there, there’s these huge monsters. Gandalf says, he goes, men of Gondor, whatever comes through that gate hold your ground.

Dr. Brian Russell:
In this terrifying battering ground with them, it’s a dragon face with fire coming out of it. And these monster trolls jump right through there. I just always think about that scene as, that can happen. I don’t mean to make it so scary, but you’re going to see scary stuff that you wish wasn’t true about yourself. That’s where it’s so important, that react to no thoughts. Because if that was the dream you’d want to wake up, right? Or slam the door and get that out of here. That’s what we tend to do with the pain in our lives, we either slam the door, distract ourselves as a way of just jamming it back down on the inside. But the gift of centering prayer and these deeper experiences with God, is God is just saying, Brian, just give that to me.

Dr. Brian Russell:
I used the prayer word, and again, you may have to do it more than once, but it’s just simply, you’re not freaking out by what you just saw. You’re just like, Jesus. When you say Jesus, you’re saying, Jesus, take this for me. It is as simple as that, but you can’t react to whatever comes. Because lot of times we just self condemn ourselves.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yes. I see that all the time.

Dr. Brian Russell:
I’m just horrible. What a horrible Christian I am. But instead try to be curious while you’re sitting in silence about what comes up and just to watch it just like you’re watching a movie and let it go up to God, because God already, and here’s the key thing, God already knows what you’re thinking, I think. He’s just waiting for us to trust him enough with our darkest secrets or deepest pain. Just give it to God. It’s not like you’re not going to be able to remember this stuff, but you’ll be able to, you slowly are freed from the past. No matter how good or bad it is by the way.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I want to be clear too, and I think you mean this as well, but we’ve talked about divine therapy. I just want to make it clear for people that this is in addition to any counseling or professional therapy that you might be thinking. It’s not in place of, both can compliment each other. Would you agree with that?

Dr. Brian Russell:
No. I absolutely agree with that. In fact, the reason that Thomas Keating started talking about divine therapy, is they would do centering retreats, week long silent retreats and stuff, and people would have some serious psychological breakdown sometimes because of spending so much time in silence. They would actually often bring professional counselors to centering prayer retreats. You don’t want to see them. You can still practice this on your own, but yeah, if what comes up out of your unconscious is incredibly painful. That’s where Christian community comes in. That’s where I think a Christian counseling is survival. I can even say, I see a therapist when I need to.

Dr. Brian Russell:
I’ve done that at different stages of my life over the last 11 years. You find a gift of a good Christian therapist, or even a good Christian coach can actually really help you to walk alongside. That’s where, if the pastors who are listening here, doing groups, centering prayer with the folks in your church can give opportunities for people to be in community. Because that’s the thing. You don’t want to isolate yourself with any of these things, because this is not a substitute, not only for counseling, it’s not a substitute for being around people that love you, that are trying to encourage you and grow along with you, into the person that God created you to be.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, definitely. Brian, as we listen to this conversation, we’ve talked about it a little bit, but if we’re wanting to get started with this practice, how can we get started?

Dr. Brian Russell:
You can get started even by turning the podcast off as soon as it’s or, and literally what you need, the preconditions really are your desire to do it, but you do need a physical environment. You wouldn’t want to do this someplace that was really noisy. You do need to try to find a quiet place. If you live in an apartment, I live in a townhouse and I can hear the neighbors sometimes, so you can play quiet music or have some white noise. You need a white noise maybe, or run a fan, if it’s noisier where you are. Just find a quiet place, a block of time, again, whether you have five minutes or 20 minutes or even more, that you can just commit to this because the key thing isn’t so much a certain amount of time, but it’s actually just doing the amount of time that you commit to. A comfortable seat is also really helpful.

Dr. Brian Russell:
I use this, well, you can’t see it on a video, but I have a comfortable chair in my office and I also have a nice recliner. My wife and I do this in the morning together and we both have a nice comfy chair, which makes it a lot easier. Find a comfortable place to sit and then literally you, again, just close your eyes, set a timer and state your intention. Again, I like the Jesus prayer, Lord, Jesus Christ, son of God have mercy on me a sinner. And then you just sit in silence. When you become aware of a thought, loop, which again will be most of the time you just use the prayer word and you go until you’re done. Now, when your timer goes off, just don’t go out and start jogging right away or something, chill for a minute or two, you can take a couple breaths.

Dr. Brian Russell:
I find it helpful to pray, do my regular time of prayer then, maybe use the Lord prayer in a group. And then the other thing that I would suggest folks do if they have this practice, is I like to journal after that’s done and then write out some things I’m grateful for and do a little prayer of exam and stuff in the morning when I do that. You can just make this an integrated part of your spiritual practice, or you can just take little centering prayer breaks at lunchtime or before you get home from work, it’s a great practice that can let you transition from one phase of your day to another one.

Heidi Wilcox:
That’s beautiful. Thank you.

Dr. Brian Russell:
Welcome.

Heidi Wilcox:
We’ve talked about some things that might come up for us as we start this practice already. But one thing that we haven’t talked about is the false self. I want to get into that a little bit. What is the false self?

Dr. Brian Russell:
This can be a little bit controversial, because again, this is psychoanalytic language, but the idea basically is, and Thomas Keating would equate the false self with what the apostle Paul calls life according to the flesh. In other words, I would consider the false self to be who we are, which we’re a mixed bag. We all have gifts from our genetics or from our training. We also have pain, right? From our own sins and also from the things that we’ve experienced. That whole bundle is really what the false self is. It’s who I am apart from God’s grace. With that comes baggage, right? That’s where the fear, guilt and shame stuff. It’s that whole little bundle that prevents us from seeing who we really are, which is, which are persons created in God image, whom God loves deeply.

Dr. Brian Russell:
That would be who the true self is. That true person who’s loved by God. And so the false self is what blocks us from that. Part of the work of sanctification is that even after you’re justified, forgiven reconciled, you still have that war going on the inside, that’s where those eight deadly or eight distracting thoughts come up. That’s all part of the flesh that hinders us to surrender fully to the holy spirit, to allow us to live fully as that person that God made us to be.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yeah, yeah. Two things because we’re almost out of time. I want to be mindful of that. Two things I want to be sure to let people know how they can connect with you if they want coaching and I or anything like that. Just want to shoot you an email. I believe you also had a book offer for our listeners as well. If you could tell us about those two things.

Dr. Brian Russell:
Obviously if a person’s part of the Asbury community right now, you can just reach out to me with my Asbury email address, especially if you’re a student. I don’t offer coaching to students. I do spiritual formation for my students and that’s part of my ministry at the seminary, but if you’re an alum or you’re outside of the seminary community and you’d like to explore the work that I offer and the services that I offer, you can go to deepdivespirituality.com. That’ll take you to my website, where I have a podcast and some other things on there and you can reach out. Or you can also use the email deepdivespirituality@gmail.com to reach out for me for coaching.

Dr. Brian Russell:
The other thing is, if you’re listening and you want to start a centering prayer group, I’m making in this offer. I’m going to say, if you have a group that has at least 15 copies of my book, if you reach out to me and again, you can reach out to me at deepdivespirituality@gmail.com. I’ll arrange a time where I can Zoom into your group. We’ll do a centering prayer session together. I’ll answer questions that you might have. Again, that may, if I get a bunch of people who are going to take me up on this, it may take a while to do it, but I will make that offer and I will honor that to anybody that listens to the podcast. Just email me at deepdivespirituality@gmail.com. We’ll set that up.

Heidi Wilcox:
That’s super generous of you, Brian. Thank you so very much. We’ll link all those things in the show notes, so people can be sure to find it if they want more information about any of that. I didn’t give you a heads up on this question. We can read your book of course. And as I’ve said, I highly recommend that, but are there some other resources you would recommend us reading if we’re wanting to learn more?

Dr. Brian Russell:
Yeah. Yes. You can look up books by Thomas Keating. Again, he has, there’s a lot of popular books. He was probably one of the main, he’s one of the chief catalyst of the revival and really the creation of what you call the centering prayer movement. His books are really helpful. I would recommend also, I was talking to you, Heidi, when we were doing the conversation. One of my favorite books, and it’s more of an academic book, but it’s readable. It’s by a Catholic priest named, his last name is Ó Madagáin. I may have to send you the spelling on this, but it’s centering prayer and the healing of the unconscious. This is probably my second favorite, one of my favorite centering prayer book.

Dr. Brian Russell:
I received this, I shared the story. I was up for an event up on the Wilmore campus. One of my colleagues told me I needed to read this. And then literally the next morning I was with another one of my colleagues and he goes, Brian, I have a book I think you should read. Matter of fact, I have an extra copy, here it is. And so I would recommend that. And then there’s a classic book by Thomas Merton called New Seeds of Contemplation. That is a great book. I would say those, what did I just give? Three authors.

Heidi Wilcox:
Three authors. Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Dr. Brian Russell:
Thomas Keating, Murchadh Ó Madagáin, and then Thomas Merton’s New Seeds of Contemplation. Folks actually might want to start with New Seeds of Contemplation, because he goes really deep. It’s almost like a devotional.

Dr. Brian Russell:
You can just read one chapter a day and that’s one of those books you can read over and over again. You’ll never get to the bottom of it. He explains the interior life really well. Those would be three great resources that people can look at.

Heidi Wilcox:
I love that. I’m writing them down and of course we’ll link those in the show notes as well. This conversation has been delightful. We have one question that we ask everyone, but before we do, is there anything else that we haven’t talked about already that you want to be sure to mention?

Dr. Brian Russell:
Again, I would just say it this way, if you do practice centering prayer, be careful because it may just change your life. I can testify that it definitely transformed me.

Heidi Wilcox:
That’s beautiful. I’m looking forward to the process of continuing that journey myself. Thank you. Thank you for the gift of your work too, because it started at least in one person, in me, it started a new journey for me. Thank you.

Dr. Brian Russell:
You’re welcome. I’m so grateful. That’s been the fun thing. I’m the Bible professor and I wrote a spiritual formation book. I get a kick out of the whole thing, but I’m just super grateful. I’m literally just grateful. This book was so fun to write. It started as my own reflections and I just kept reflecting, and then I ended up having this book. The first publisher I went to, Paraclete, which they took it right off the bat. I haven’t had the greatest publication record. I usually get reject a couple times. And so this was literally the easiest, most fun book that I’ve ever read. And really I’ll say the most authentic in the sense that, I think it’s me. That camp comes through this book and this book isn’t just about me. I just use some of my story as, well, you write, as an example through the book.

Dr. Brian Russell:
It’s just been total joy to write. I’m so grateful that you picked up a little bit of that even in your own reading. Thanks for telling me that.

Heidi Wilcox:
I love it. So now for our question that we ask everybody, because the show is called the Thrive with Asbury Seminary podcast. What is one practice other than centering prayer that is helping you thrive in your life right now?

Dr. Brian Russell:
Just one practice, right?

Heidi Wilcox:
You can have more than one.

Dr. Brian Russell:
Let me just rattle off, because I love this question. Centering prayer is just one piece of my, what, we call rule of life or rhythm of life. I’ll give you two real quick things that, or three things that a lot of times get neglected. We don’t think is spiritual. I commit to sleeping seven to eight hours every day. I consider that my spiritual practice, because that lets me function and I can tell. I eat the healthiest food that I possibly can, so I’m energized and ready to serve students. I even have a special diet I use when I do my intensives because I don’t want to have brain fog after I have lunch. Food matters a lot spiritually and I exercise pretty much every single day and stretch. So I can be, my physical body can last as long as possible to serve.

Dr. Brian Russell:
Those are three core things. But let me throw in one more practice. It’s my journaling practice. I mentioned this. A lot of folks find this really helpful. It’s my hack version of a prayer of examine. It only takes five minutes a day. I’ve been doing this almost, I actually might have been doing this even longer than I did the centering prayer, because I started doing this way back, as soon as everything went south in my life there. Every morning I wake up, I do this after my centering prayer now, but I write five things I’m grateful for every day. And then I write down really carefully what seems to be hindering me and what am I struggling with? Where do things not feel right in my life?

Dr. Brian Russell:
That’s another way to process and release things to God. And then I write down what would make today a really good day. As a Christian I’m thinking about ministry and stuff, but what would make so gratitude, what’s bothering me? What would make this a really impactful day? Then at night, this is where it’s helps for sleeping too. At night I just come back and process and I just write down, what are three ways that I saw God working today? Three wins where God was working and that’s so critical if I have a bad day, because it means I didn’t have a bad day, because I just found at least three things that went right. And so I haven’t had a bad day in 10 years, Heidi. Metaphorically right.

Dr. Brian Russell:
And then if I forget something, I’m like, okay, what did I leave undone? I make a little note and that frees me. I’ve rejoiced over the day of what God’s done. If I thought, I better remember this tomorrow, I just make a note. So I don’t wake up middle of the night thinking about something I should have done. Right? And so that has been a game changing practice that has let me thrive.

Heidi Wilcox:
I love that. Thank you so much for sharing those things.

Dr. Brian Russell:
You’re welcome.

Heidi Wilcox:
Super helpful. Thank you. Thank you so much, not just for that, but for this whole conversation today, it has been a joy and a delight. Thank you very much for joining us.

Dr. Brian Russell:
You’re welcome Heidi. Thanks everybody for listening all the way to end. I’m super grateful for all of you.

Heidi Wilcox:
Yes. You’re welcome back here anytime.

Dr. Brian Russell:
Thanks.

Heidi Wilcox:
Hey everyone. Thank you so much for joining me for today’s conversation with Dr. Brian Russell. So grateful. What a gift, his work and words were to me today. I hope you found this conversation encouraging as well. As we start or maybe choose to continue this practice of centering prayer, may we understand God’s Grace, love and healing in new ways as we learn to see ourselves the way God sees us. If you liked what you heard, I hope you’ll drop Dr. Russell a note and tell him thanks so much for being on the podcast today. Don’t forget to pick up a copy of his book. Centering Prayer: Sitting Quietly in God’s Presence Can Change Your Life. Well, that’s it for me today. As always you can follow us in all the places, on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, at Asbury Seminary. Until next time I hope you’ll go do something that helps you thrive.