Bryan Richardson – Page 49 – The Everyday Prayer

Grow

Re: Verse reading–Exodus 20:12; Luke 2:45-52; John 19:25-27 (day three)

“Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them.”

It is no coincidence that two sentences after we about Jesus’s obedience, we read that Jesus grew in all aspects of his personhood—body, mind, spirit, social context. Children are not physically smaller versions of adults. They are not capable of the complex moral reasoning required to help shape the social order for the common good. Obedience is the discipline that helps children develop such capacities. To teach children to obey is not to burden them with an oppressive power structure; rather, it is to take seriously their potential as moral creatures—capable of great good or great harm. Obedience is the only pathway towards the good life God created each child to live. Are you teaching children to obey?

Childcare

Re: Verse reading–Psalm 127:3-5; Proverbs 22:6; Deuteronomy 6:1-9 (day three)

“Children are a heritage from the Lord.” Pop culture tries very hard to make childhood disappear. Movies often portray children as people who have the most wisdom of all the characters in the story. Child celebrities often get celebrated and congratulated when they finally leave behind all the “kid stuff” and present themselves as sexually savvy. We want people to be smart, cool, sexual rocket scientists who rule the world. Who has time for children who actually act like children: innocent, vulnerable, and trusting, but also selfish, grumpy, and undisciplined? If the world has no room for children, the world will eventually have no room for you, because caring for children is what makes people able to care for each other. How are you caring for children?

Incarnate

Re: Verse reading–Ephesians 5:21-33 (day three)

“‘…And the two will become one flesh.’ This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.”

Man and woman marry, and the children born to that union are one flesh from the two. This is how the human race goes on. And God participated in that fleshly union when he joined himself to human flesh in the womb of Mary. Without human marriage creating and perpetuating the nation of Israel, Christ would have not entered human history—and without Christ, there would be no church. Therefore, even our salvation was made possible by flesh (Christ’s flesh) that came from the long history of the union of man and woman. When we use sexuality rightly—through the union of man and woman or through celibacy—we declare with God that his creation is good.

Inventory

Re: Verse reading–1 Samuel 16:1-7; Psalm 139 (day three)

“Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord?” The hardest type of leadership is self-leadership, experts conclude. You don’t say. “If only you, God, would slay the wicked!” That comes easy enough. Then, a sobering turn: If God is everywhere, he is surely privy to one’s innermost thoughts. What if those innermost thoughts harbor malice, greed, dishonesty? Has the psalmist just condemned himself? He realizes the high probability that his own heart shares the same traits as the hearts of the people he has asked the Lord to annihilate. Self-leadership demands a fierce moral inventory: God, search me, test me, see me, lead me. We will never preach God’s forgiveness without the poison of arrogance until we have humbled ourselves enough to become the forgiven.

Love

Re: Verse reading–Genesis 1:26-31; Romans 5:1-11 (day three)

“God created mankind in his own image.” The celebrated idea of our times is that constraint on human power is oppression, that boundaries are made to be crossed, that order is a tool of the privileged to deny people a voice. And so the story of contemporary society has become a story of endless self-expression, self-focus, and self-indulgence. The rise of the “selfie” perfectly sums up the state of our thinking. As creatures made in God’s image, we, like God, have the power to carry out our will. Interestingly, though, the Bible says “God is love”, not “God is power.” God is powerful, but his love informs his power. Without love, God’s power would destroy, not create. The same is true for us. Without love, our power isn’t our glory, but our destruction.

Found

Re: Verse reading–Exodus 39:32, 42-43; 40:1-2, 16-17, 32-38 (day three)

“…in the sight of all the house of Israel” God acted within view of all Israel. Indeed, Paul tells us that in creating the material universe, God has acted in full view of the entire human race. Take issue with God, run from him, tell of your anger towards him, choose not to follow his commands—but don’t claim that he cannot be found. Don’t assert that his presence can’t be known. Don’t state that his existence is unlikely. We don’t get to bend reality to our ideas. If you would follow your own desires instead of God’s direction, then at least declare your intentions to God himself. Have that serious conversation. If you do, you can find the way towards saving grace when your will leads you to a dead end.

Time

Re: Verse reading–Exodus 35:4-10; 20-35; 36:2-7 (day three)

“[The Lord] has filled [Bezalel] with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills.”

Though God could have willed it so, it is unlikely that Bezalel suddenly found himself able to do metalworking and gemcutting—as if he had never worked with such materials before, then woke up one day as an expert in those crafts. The method of God with people that we see repeatedly in scripture is his use of time to help form the bodies, minds, and spirits of those who seek his direction. We’re prone to curse time as being too long (or too short). But one who seeks to grow in the way God has made him will find time to be a beautiful pathway along which the Holy Spirit leads him into the fullness of God.

Smash

Re: Verse reading–Exodus 32:1-19, 30-33; 33:12-17; 34:1-7 (day three)

“His anger burned…” Moses saw the Israelites living the life they had learned over the last four centuries in Egypt: If your God is bigger than your own desires, your God is too big. Moses knew that to give up on God is to give up on reality, and death follows soon thereafter. Egypt itself was already dead; God had shattered that culture and taken the children of Israel out into the wilderness to rebuild a new culture powered by a new worldview—one based in reality, not in false perceptions of the universe. Now, the children of Israel had returned to a dead culture in all but geography. Moses’s anger called them back. They listened, and they returned. Are there Christian mentors or elders or leaders in your life tablet-smashingly troubled over your spiritual direction? Are you listening?

Gaze

Re: Verse reading–Exodus 25:1-11, 17-18, 23-24, 31-32; 26:1-2, 7-8; 27:1-2; 29:43-46 (day three)

“Then I will dwell among the Israelites and be their God.”

Someone once said about a famously charismatic politician: “He always made you feel as if he were lucky to be with you.” Contrast that with a situation in which you attempt to talk in a public space with someone who repeatedly looks past you to other people in the room. Nothing says “You don’t matter” quite like a distracted gaze. The Israelites—whose display of gratitude for God’s presence was genuine, and not merely political charisma—told the Lord by their intents and their actions that they needed to live with him. They gave themselves wholly to the creation of sacred space to make such a life possible for themselves. Are you looking past God, or creating sacred space with him?

Climb

Re: Verse reading–Exodus 24 (day three)

“But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank.” In order to see God, the Israelite elders had to come with Moses some distance up the mountain. We make much of God’s coming to us, and we are right to do so. Indeed he did come to us—but he did not pander to us. Indeed he did come to us—but he did not give us the answers we demand. There is some distance we must climb to him, but not because God is grudging in his self-revelation. When you really want to find something, you will not wait for it to appear in your hand; you will seek it earnestly. Anything else is just lip service. God knows it, and you know it.