Bryan Richardson – Page 37 – The Everyday Prayer

Desire

Re:Verse reading–Genesis 3:1-7 (day three)

“The woman saw that the fruit of the tree was… desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.” Within God’s life, desire occupies its rightful place of service to the other aspects of his character. In our sin-corrupted lives, by contrast, we have elevated desire to a position of authority. This is a position it is incapable of occupying well. It was never meant to serve in place of reason. It is a poor substitute for thinking. It is a disaster when confused with love. Here’s the history of sin in two words: I want. Here’s the path back to purity in eight words: Not what I want, but what you want. Which of these do you find yourself expressing?

Reign

Re: Verse reading–Genesis 1:26-28; 2:18-25 (day three)

“Let them rule…over all the earth.” The destiny of man to rule over the created order bookends the Bible. In Genesis and in Revelation, we discover God’s explicit intention that we become the kind of people who can be entrusted to rule. And let us understand: To rule isn’t to sit on a throne and bark orders. Rather, to rule is to have say over the flourishing of creation—to allocate resources and design systems and execute processes that realize the potential God has built into the universe. Such an endeavor requires wisdom. Ruling without wisdom results in…the kind of world we live in right now. Let us get quickly to God and seek from him the wisdom that we will need to reign with him in this age and in the age to come.

Desire

Re: Verse reading–Genesis 2:4-17 (day three)

“In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” The potential to do evil isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. If we cannot will to do evil, then we cannot will to love. Is evil therefore necessary? No. It is not necessary, it is possible. It is possible for human beings because we have the capacity to reason, to choose. The aim of God is not that we would do things right because we are incapable of evil. It is that we would do righteousness because we do not desire evil. And so, a question: What do you desire?

Time

Re: Verse reading–Genesis 1:14-25; 2:1-3 (day three)

“Let [the lights] serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years.” The universe is not merely a structure made of well-ordered subatomic particles and energy. There is more to it that the fact that it exists. Moses teaches us that the question “What is it for? (or, more precisely, “Who is it for”) is a perfectly appropriate one. Some might answer that question by saying, “It is for God.” It seems that even God would say that is an incomplete answer—that it is for man as well. Those “sacred times, and days and years” are markers for us, helping us to know God and to know one another, to grow, and to love. It takes time to be a human. God built time into this universe for that very purpose.

Mercy

Re: Verse reading–Genesis 1:1-13 (day three)

“God created the heavens and the earth.” Open any older edition of the King James Version Bible, and you’ll see that the first book of the Old Testament carries this heading: “The First Book of Moses, Commonly Called Genesis”. The Hebrews used to understand that the universe submits to the person of God himself, but 430 years in Egypt had all but eradicated that knowledge. The cosmology, ethical system, and culture of the Egyptians had set the parameters of their thinking, leaving them to believe that they were at the mercy of the world around them. But Moses re-introduced them to the Maker of the heavens and the earth, revealing to them that human beings are not at the mercy of the universe, but at the mercy of God. Have you forgotten that?

Seriously

Re: Verse reading–Mark 15:33-41; 16:1-8 (day three)

“They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” What to make of this verse? It has no “I-can-do-all-things” ring to it. It doesn’t urge us onto the evangelism trail. And it sure seems to tamp down the joy. Where’s the confidence, the eagerness, the breezy optimism we’ve come associate with this ancient Sunday morning? Do these disciples just need time to clear their heads before donning an Easter bonnet? Or do we rather need to learn from them: to take seriously as they took seriously that the world they knew—and took comfort in—had indeed been swept away, and they didn’t yet know how to live? Their fear reveals not an unenlightened mind, but a perception of God’s footprint. We should all be so afraid.

Forbear

Re: Verse reading–Mark 14:43-52; 15:1-15 (day three)

“Jesus still made no reply.” Consider: The one whose speech alone brought the universe into existence did not utter a word here. This is what the use of speech looks like in the hands of a master. Jesus refused to treat words as an escape hatch from the present moment. Like using friendship to advance a self-serving agenda, or using others’ feelings of compassion to evade your responsibilities, the use of words to circumvent your own suffering is existential malpractice. At this point, words would have only served to shield Jesus from the suffering that must come for the good of the human race. You have perhaps desired to imitate the words of Jesus. What will it take for you to imitate the silence of Jesus?

Ruthless

Re: Verse reading–Mark 14:12-31 (day three)

“‘Surely you don’t mean me?’” It’s hard to take an inside look. How about this hilarious 2002 statistic from pollster George Barna: Ninety percent of pastors rate themselves as above-average preachers and teachers. Ninety percent are above average? Think about that. Anyway, Jesus kept saying life with him requires that a person deny himself. But we say we just need a little margin, a little breathing space, a little vacation from the frustration. If we can have that, we’ll be golden. No, Jesus says, we don’t need that. What we need is God’s mercy in the face of our depravity. As long as we’re in surely-not-I mode, we won’t believe for a moment that our own wickedness is gumming up the works. And so we claim to be without sin.

Words

Re: Verse reading–Mark 11:12-33 (day three)

“‘Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!’” Of course it did. Jesus spoke without bombast, without pretentiousness. This is how God uses words. He spoke all heaven and earth into being. He gives us power like that—not to that degree, but like it. We speak encouragement, and people start to hope. We speak in agreement with God, and others see God in a new light. We speak a plan to help a person in need, and those we call on do what we ask. Work that matters begins with words. The disciples act as if there is no connection between words and results. But then again they’ve seen a lifetime full of empty words. These times call for true words. May we learn them from God, and speak them to one another and to the world.

Love

Re: Verse reading–Mark 10: 32-45 (day three)

“Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant.” Might we abuse this teaching from Jesus? You know we might. Jesus teaches us that serving another doesn’t lead to greatness. Serving another is greatness. Otherwise, we become servants so that we might get a better job later on. We would indeed serve people as a means to a self-serving end. But the life together that the Three-In-One God lives is a life in which the Son defers to the Father, the Father calls attention to the Son, the Holy Spirit illuminates all creation with the truth of the Son, and the Father and Son send the Holy Spirit. Each person of the Trinity magnifies the other persons of the Trinity. This is servanthood. To serve one another is to live the life God lives.