A Year of Prayer: Season One Weekday DevotionalsSample

We need microscopes to see bacteria and telescopes to see the stars. Things beyond our eyeline—either too small or too large—need special focus so we may understand and truly comprehend them. In order to truly understand what God has given us, what God has promised us, and what God has willed us as our inheritance, we need the eyes of the Holy Spirit, who brings revelation.

This scripture today is really about the deep perception of the things of God—not just hearing but truly listening, not just being alive but truly living, not just promises but eternal covenants.

God has promised that we are God’s children, made in God’s likeness and with the ability to know God. God is our ultimate parent, and he longs to extend the promises God gave David to us. 1 Corinthians 2:12 (NIV) says, ‘What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us.’

Parents help their children. They love them unconditionally. A good parent will do whatever it takes to help their child thrive and hopefully become a self-sufficient adult with fully-fledged skills and abilities of their own. A good parent will protect and serve their child, teach, educate, feed, and house.

No parent is perfect except one. And God longs for you to know how Christ has come to protect and serve you, for the Holy Spirit to teach and educate you, for the Creator God to feed and house you. This perfect community of hope longs to embrace you – the God of all creation, because you are made in God’s image and for God’s faithful love.

Prayer: Jesus, help me to hear and see you.

Action: Spend two minutes with your eyes closed, just listening. What do you ‘see’? What do you notice that you didn’t before?