We’ve crossed the threshold into a new year and we are so glad that you are here with us to listen and pray. We hope that our weekly Listen-In emails feel like a gentle invitation to prayer and deepening friendship with God.
As we come before the text to listen and pray, we can come with confidence that the Holy Spirit is already praying perfectly in us. The Spirit causes something to stir within us as we pause and listen. We have freedom to respond to those stirrings in ways that are unique and authentic to us. We pray as we can and not as we can’t.
We bless you as God takes you by the hand into your real life. May you hear the gentle invitations to pause and listen freshly to the Spirit’s prayer within you.
You are chosen.
God delights in you.
God will bring forth justice.
God guards you.
You will be a light.
Isaiah 42: 1-9 NRSV
Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations.
He will not cry out or lift up his voice or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice.
He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth, and the coastlands wait for his teaching.
Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who walk in it:
I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness; I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.
I am the Lord; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to idols. See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them.
For Reflection and Prayer:
Was there a word, a phrase, image, or feeling that ‘shimmered’ as you listened? Allow it to land in your heart. Stay with it. Savor it.
Reflect on what you heard. What effect does it have on you? What meaning does it hold for you? What does the Holy Spirit seem to be conveying to you? Talk it over in your prayer. Perhaps you want to draw or color your prayer or journal the conversation.
As the time of prayer comes to a close, share some moments of quiet with Jesus, simply resting safely in his presence.
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