Part Three of Four, PRAY
A RECAP: If you have been following “Daily Manna with Your Mug”, you are realizing I like to write short, personal writings that are created from my own “conversations” with God and then passed on to you each morning. When I rise each new day, I get a large mug of coffee and a bowl of Cheerios and “have breakfast with Jesus. It begins with prayer, reading, thinking, and then writing. Since completing the Book of Revelation last week, I am led to go back to the beginning—the Genesis of God’s message to us and for us.
Yesterday we learned how to THINK during and after we read the Word of God to us. When we stop to think more about what God is saying, our relationship grows deeper and we discover that His love is deep. His love longs for us to commune with him, Prayer, a conversation, is the way we talk and listen to God. This way to understand the Bible has four parts: READ, THINK, PRAY, LIVE. We discussed READ in Part One, THINK is Part Two, now let’s learn to PRAY.
PRAY
We’ve read the text. We’ve spent time thinking. Now comes prayer. The kind of prayer we’re talking about goes beyond merely asking for things—although there’s a time for that, and God even tells us to do that often. But in this process of “lectio divina”, there a time when you need to acknowledge what God is saying to you. Did God reveal something new about who he is? Did he reveal something about who you are in his eyes? Is he asking you to think about someone in a different light? Talk to God about it. Ask God to show you more about what you’ve just read:
“Help me understand these things inside and out so I can ponder your miracle-wonders” (Psalm 119)
Don’t just read through the Bible and breeze through the prayer part. Go beyond the usual “thanks for this or that, help me to be a better person” routine. Have a conversation with God. He wants to do that with you! We discover that these conversations will begin to shift the focus from ourselves and more and more to God, our Creator.
Pray about a passage more than once; it’s okay! No one needs to know what you say to God or how many times you say it—only God. We might want to pray with a different focus at times. Our lives are constantly changing through the many seasons of life. God knows that. Talking to God about what you’re learning in each season, thanking him for the truth in the passage, asking God questions, asking him to show us how to make the words real in our lives, asking forgiveness for what we see in ourselves after reading, or just listening—these are all ways to go about prayer.
The point is to focus more intentionally on God and what He’s communicating to you through this process.
Here is an example we all understand. If you have a friend who constantly asks you for things but never really wants to listen to you, how deep will your relationship go?
Sometimes we forget that God has a personality and wants to engage us at a deeper level. Let prayer be a time that you come to savor and look forward to as you enjoy being with the One who loves you most! Allow this to be a time in which God speaks to you and you actively seek him. An audible voice may not come booming out of the clouds, but many things will be revealed to you through this process—about God, about reality, and about you.
Personally speaking, prayer also brings peace to my mind, heart and soul each day, right in the middle of the chaos unfolding around me. This is a gift from God to us!
So, let’s read, think, and now pray asking for what God want us to hear and understand from Him today in our first passage that begins our relationship with Him. Tomorrow we will learn to live what we read, think about and pray over. Here’s where the “rubber meets the road”!
Genesis 1, The Message
Heaven and Earth
1 1-2 First this: God created the Heavens and Earth—all you see, all you don’t see. Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God’s Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss.
3-5 God spoke: “Light!”
And light appeared.
God saw that light was good
and separated light from dark.
God named the light Day,
he named the dark Night.
It was evening, it was morning—
Day One.
6-8 God spoke: “Sky! In the middle of the waters;
separate water from water!”
God made sky.
He separated the water under sky
from the water above sky.
And there it was:
he named sky the Heavens;
It was evening, it was morning—
Day Two.
9-10 God spoke: “Separate!
Water-beneath-Heaven, gather into one place;
Land, appear!”
And there it was.
God named the land Earth.
He named the pooled water Ocean.
God saw that it was good.
11-13 God spoke: “Earth, green up! Grow all varieties
of seed-bearing plants,
Every sort of fruit-bearing tree.”
And there it was.
Earth produced green seed-bearing plants,
all varieties,
And fruit-bearing trees of all sorts.
God saw that it was good.
It was evening, it was morning—
Day Three.
14-15 God spoke: “Lights! Come out!
Shine in Heaven’s sky!
Separate Day from Night.
Mark seasons and days and years,
Lights in Heaven’s sky to give light to Earth.”
And there it was.
16-19 God made two big lights, the larger
to take charge of Day,
The smaller to be in charge of Night;
and he made the stars.
God placed them in the heavenly sky
to light up Earth
And oversee Day and Night,
to separate light and dark.
God saw that it was good.
It was evening, it was morning—
Day Four.
20-23 God spoke: “Swarm, Ocean, with fish and all sea life!
Birds, fly through the sky over Earth!”
God created the huge whales,
all the swarm of life in the waters,
And every kind and species of flying birds.
God saw that it was good.
God blessed them: “Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Ocean!
Birds, reproduce on Earth!”
It was evening, it was morning—
Day Five.
24-25 God spoke: “Earth, generate life! Every sort and kind:
cattle and reptiles and wild animals—all kinds.”
And there it was:
wild animals of every kind,
Cattle of all kinds, every sort of reptile and bug.
God saw that it was good.
26-28 God spoke: “Let us make human beings in our image, make them
reflecting our nature
So they can be responsible for the fish in the sea,
the birds in the air, the cattle,
And, yes, Earth itself,
and every animal that moves on the face of Earth.”
God created human beings;
he created them godlike,
Reflecting God’s nature.
He created them male and female.
God blessed them:
“Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge!
Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air,
for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth.”
29-30 Then God said, “I’ve given you
every sort of seed-bearing plant on Earth
And every kind of fruit-bearing tree,
given them to you for food.
To all animals and all birds,
everything that moves and breathes,
I give whatever grows out of the ground for food.”
And there it was.
31 God looked over everything he had made;
it was so good, so very good!
It was evening, it was morning—
Day Six.
Lord,
You are God and Creator, we are not. You created in us, embedded into our DNA, a place for you in our souls that is not satisfied until we begin a relationship with You. My soul seeks you and asks you to fill my soul of all that is you and remove all that is not—“as far as the east is from the west”.
As I read, think and pray over this beginning of your Creation, I am in awe of your Greatness and Power at an even deeper level. That you would create men and women in your image, knowing they would mess up your perfect Creation with their choices is beyond my thinking until I remember you had a plan and process for that, too—Jesus, who was there at the beginning of it all. Wow.
Thank you, Lord, God of Heaven and Earth. Thank you for loving us the way you do. Thank you for providing for all our needs. Thank you for wanting to be with us, in conversation and in all of life. Yes, You are God and we are not, but we are allowed to come to you at any time of day or night because of your deep love for us. You want to be with us! Amazing!
In Jesus Name, For Your Glory, Amen and Yes!
Daily Manna (Coffee with Jesus) 