Reflection: Intercedes: Listen: Prayers and Poetry

Reflection Questions

1.     How deep do your prayers go?

2.     Have you sought the Spirit’s help recently? Why? Why not?

3.     Does knowing the Spirit covers us bring a sense of assurance or a sense of discomfort?

Share: Where do you need prayer today?

Intercedes: Listen: Prayers and Poetry

Reading: Romans 8:26

“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.”

Do you ever feel stuck when praying? Rote prayers or help! prayers or vague prayers sometimes become our lifeline when we find ourselves praying from places of emptiness instead of fullness.

God already knows what’s in our hearts. Even when we don’t. Instead of trying to push through the confusion and fog on our own we are offered the Spirit’s insight and clarity.

Harry Emerson Fosdick says that when we habitually put ourselves in an attitude of willingness to do whatever God wills and to work His will in and through us we are in true prayer.

Even in our weakness.

“It was while waiting in prayer that He received the gift of the Holy Spirit, He dared not begin His public mission without that anointing.” S. D. Gordon

When we begin as Jesus did, with a clear sense of His promises as guided by the Spirit, our prayers can take on clearer, deeper depths. In His strength and wisdom.

Thank you, Lord, for Your Spirit to take us deeper. Guide us to align our prayers with Your purpose and Your heart of reconciliation.

Psalm of Worship: Proverbs 8:25

“Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth—“

Waiting: Listen: Prayers and Poetry

                       Waiting

                       

                        Does waiting come

                        with tap dancing

                        precision

                        caught up in rhythm

                        attuned to

                        musical beats

                        expectant pleasure.

                        Or a foot stomping

                        tantrum kicking

                        dirt

                        swirling doubts

                        scratching the word’s

                        raspy notes

                        creating static.

Reflection: Patience: Listen: Prayers and Poetry

Reflection Questions

1.     Even when you are sure of an outcome how do you wait? Anxious? Patient or impatient? In trust?

2.     We tend to think in concrete, tangible terms. What kind of intangible hope do you think God has waiting for us besides eternity?

3.     Where might the fruits of the Spirit apply? Galatians 5:22-23

Share: Which one do you most hope for in the near future? For which are you prepared to wait a long time if necessary?

Patience: Listen: Prayers and Poetry

Reading: Romans 8:25

“But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”

Too often I cannot wait with patience. Too often I have not grown past the demands of a toddler when I wait with an attitude of fretfulness, or an insistence of now.

To hope is to trust completely.

The Lord has promised us that we will be made in His image. Often we have a long way to go. Sometimes it is good that we don’t see the road ahead, especially if we have a tendency to turn our version of disappointments into complaint. Or an attempt to manipulate our perceived outcome.

To hope is to trust that the Lord’s dreams and imagination He begins in us will become a reality—in His time and not ours. Will be authentic by the Spirit’s counsel and not a cardboard copy of our false imitations.

Thank you, Lord, for the seeds You sow in us to prepare us for the journey. Show us how to wait in Your peace with trusting patience.

To still hope regardless.

Psalm of Worship: Proverbs 8:24

“When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water.”

Illumine: Listen: Prayers and Poetry

                       

                       Illumine

                        Light and darkness

                        illumine our days

                        yet we cannot touch them,

                        no hands can grasp

                        a rainbow

                        perhaps a star if

                        it fell at our feet.

                        Northern lights dance

                        waves billow

                        none can be held

                        like hope tangible and

                        illusive—yet

                        very present

                        though unseen.

Reflection: Hope: Listen: Prayers and Poetry

Reflection Questions

1.     Make a list of all the things you hope for in your life.

2.     Where do you ‘see’ God’s hope in each of them?

3.     How easily do you think we replace God’s hope for our man-made version?

4.     What makes a sense of proof so important to us in today’s culture?

Share: When has the Lord revealed a hope to you that you had not seen?

-->