Prayer To Stay Focused on What Is Both Simple and Basic

FOCUSING ON THE SIMPLE AND THE BASIC

Here in Canada and around the world we are once again at the point where gathering with others poses increasing risks of virus transmission. We are reminded over and over again that it is the simple basic practices that make all the difference.  We are all trying to be careful to get our face coverings on, to maintain physical distancing, and to clean our hands often, being careful what we touch with our hands.  We see fist bumps and elbow bumps and “virtual hugs” – so many things to try to put others around us at ease and not have a negative impact.

These ongoing and necessary precautions has me also thinking about how we approach others as we seek to make the love and forgiveness of God known.  One of the greatest evangelists of all time said this:

And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling.

My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.

1 Corinthians 2:1-5

As we think about doing everything we can to keep the air space around us clean so others are not made ill with COVID-19 by our physical presence, are we making similar efforts to ensure that the things we say and the manner in which we say them bring spiritual health in an atmosphere that?  Jesus brought a simple message that wasn’t cluttered by all kinds of other agendas.  What mattered first was that God’s gift of Jesus Christ, dying on our behalf so we could have new life lived in the power of God. 

Today we pray to have a similar heart and focus as we live for God among all the distractions of the pandemic restrictions.

Heavenly Father, we’re grateful that You came to us simply and with the wonderful message of the life of Jesus Christ.  You didn’t make things complicated for us but clearly revealed who You are, what You are like, and all the wonderful plans You have for us.  It’s true that the message of grace is much better than we are able to even imagine it and we agree with the words that say:

“What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”—the things God has prepared for those who love him—these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.

1 Corinthians 2:9-10

Just as we long for things to normalize and for us to be able to go out and do things we enjoy and spend time with people we love without the necessary health restrictions so we also long for the day when we will live with You, Loving God, enjoying all the things You have prepared for us – those things that no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no human mind has conceived – because they are so good and so pure and so appropriate for us. 

We pray today to be able to understand all that You have in mind for us to know and to be able to share that effectively with others who are living lost and fearful in the middle of the pandemic upheaval. 

Please fill us again with Your Holy Spirit so we get it right.  You promise that the Holy Spirit will help us understand all that You have given us and will give us just the right words – even wise words – as we speak and share with others.

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. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.

1 Corinthians 2:12-13

And so we go into this day trusting You, God, to search our hearts, to help us filter our thoughts and to do in us whatever is necessary so we don’t just live by human judgment but truly apply the kind of thinking and understanding that is meant when You say that “we have the mind of Christ.”

We long to know You more and better.  We long for others to experience the joy and blessing we experience as we live each day in Your presence under Your care.  Help us today, we pray, by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Amen