Day #17: Give Names Away to a Holy House
[If you want to know how and why this devotional came into existence feel free to read this]
What you will need:
- A Bible
- This Devotional
- Some Coloring Utensils
- And a print out of this awesome coloring sheet designed by Joel Swick (Instagram and Dribble)
(Here is the week #1 and the week # 2 sheet designed by Nic Mansfield)
Theme: Promise and Blessing
Passage for March 17th 2017: Ephesians 1:15-23
Bars from “Finish Line/Drown”
She gave my name away to your holy house
She like my blessings in disguise
She like her Jesus mountain high
So He can watch her lonely child
A Thought:
My Mother is a prayer person. I have seen her many afternoons and evenings sit down in a recliner in my childhood living room. Next to the chair is a basket full of yarn and knitting needles that she picks up for an hour or two at multiple points throughout her day. As she meticulously works her purl stitch, she prays for a specific person. The eventual result of her time will be a shawl representing hours of prayer on someones behalf which she then gives to them as the gift. And as she hands it to them, regardless if they are a person of faith or not, my mom tells them she was praying for them as she knit it for them. This practice has been a wonderful model of faith for me. She gives people a beautify representation of the reality Paul is asking us all to faithfully live out. We are to be a covering of prayer for one another.
Prayer names the moments where we invite the reality and will of God to come into the present. This reality Jesus calls “The Kingdom of God.” Paul and, one of the guest artists on what is one of my favorite verses on “Coloring Book”, Noname show us the method and effect of prayer. We all have been embedded in communities of people. Our families, our work places, our roommates, our classrooms and our neighborhoods are all places where God is at work. Paul asks us to lift all of them up in prayer, asking for God’s reality to break into those communities so His love may be made known. When we see God’s kingdom come, Ephesians encourages us to thank God for his faithful work in the lives of others. Noname expresses the experience of one who is recipient of those prayers. Even in her experience of loneliness, the prayers of others lift her into the presence of the most high God.
As followers of Jesus, we can give this gift of prayer to one another. And as we become the recipients of this gift from Community of God, we experience the Lord's blessing.
Here are the questions I am pondering today: Who are the people that I know are praying for me? Have I said thank you to them recently? Who is it that I need to commit to praying for on a regular basis?
Mediation: Colossians 3:16-17
As you color today ask the Lord to reveal someone you can lift up in prayer. Pray this verse from Colossians for them today. You can repeat it on their behalf. Or just slowly say the verse and spend some time praying about whatever the Lord brings to your mind, allowing your self to “give thanks for them as [you] remember them in your prayers.”