Many American Christians profess belief in a benevolent God yet hold implicit mental models of God as angry or distant. This paper proposes that meditating on selected scriptures emphasizing God's benevolence—a version of lectio divina combined with a picture of a smiling Jesus—may help bridge that gap. The method integrates reflection on scripture with insights from neuroscience, including implicit memories, neural mirroring, and attachment theory. The author suggests that such meditation could mitigate negative images of God rooted in dysfunctional childhood or abusive experiences, and calls for experimental testing of this hypothesis.
Long-term Christian contemplative prayer practice—sustained silent awareness of the Holy Spirit's presence over 2 to 40+ years—is associated with four dimensions of the Holy Spirit's ministry: holistic healing, spiritual formation, soul care, and faith. These findings emerged from interviews with thirty-six practitioners and extend an existing substantive theory that integrates contemplative prayer, well-being, and embodiment. The work provides a conceptual framework for understanding how this embodied spiritual practice may affect practitioners over decades, though the study is qualitative and does not establish causal effects.