God-Soaked Bible Guide – Day 22

Monday, March 27 – Mark 1:1-11

¹The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

²As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,

“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way;
³the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight,’”

⁴John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. ⁵And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. ⁶Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. ⁷He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. ⁸I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

⁹In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. ¹⁰And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. ¹¹And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

Points of Interest:

After several centuries of thought and prayer and debate, majority consensus amongst Christian leaders was that the best way to understand Jesus was to consider him as both fully human and fully divine. Mysterious as this statement is, I personally find it to ring both deeply true and deeply helpful. That said, no one in the first century put it quite that way. But Jesus’ first followers were struck by this person who experienced a God-soaked world like no one else and who helped others experience a God-soaked world as well. This was one of many ways that Jesus was good news. Jesus seemed to give others a whole new level of access and depth to their experience of God.
Mark’s first verse, which is really a title, is also an invitation – today can still be the beginning, or a new beginning, of Jesus’ good news to each of us.
Before Jesus hits the stage, Mark gives us a short opening act: the quirky and colorful and cross-cultural John the Baptizer. John’s job is to warm up the stage, or prepare the way for Jesus. He does this by telling people to repent or reorient – to turn away from godless thinking and living and to turn toward God and God’s cleansing and acceptance.
The vehicle for this turning toward God is baptism. The word in Greek means something like “to immerse in water.” Its roots are in Jewish ritual washing – especially the tevilah – a full body immersion in water to mark conversion to Judaism or any number of occasions that symbolized cleansing, acceptance by God, and a return to relationship with God.
John offers a baptism that will symbolically prepare people for connection with God. John says God’s next spokesperson, which turns out to be Jesus, will immerse people in the very presence and experience of God. John has immersion in water to offer, Jesus offers immersion in God. This is part of the New Covenant spirituality we’ve mentioned off and on in this season – actual, deep experience of God available through Jesus for all people, at all times.
Unexpectedly, the person to offer this baptism first receives it himself. Jesus is lowered into the river by John, and as he’s standing up, he himself experiences what John says Jesus will do for others. Jesus is immersed in, surrounded by, and filled with God. (This is a confusing but deep thought. Let’s say it again. In Jesus’ own baptism, he experiences what he will henceforth offer to others – a deep experience of the presence of God.)
What is this experience of God like? Jesus sees a vision – something he can only describe as kind of like a bird appearing and descending from the sky to him. And he hears God speak to him – “You are my child, the one I love. And I am so happy with you and proud of you.” Let’s not assume total literalism with the bird and the words. We don’t know how Jesus saw and heard in this moment. Spiritual experiences, as we’ve discussed, are famously ineffable – hard to put into words. Whether this was happening in Jesus’ external senses – really seeing and hearing as we usually mean those words – or whether these were clear thoughts appearing in Jesus’ mind, we don’t know. We also don’t know how much of this experience was unique to Jesus and how much it’s a pattern for everybody’s experience as a child of God.
It seems safe to say, though, that Jesus’ experience isn’t entirely unique to him. His Jesus-centered baptism is the first of many. Immersion in God as God’s child will always include an experience of God’s love, God’s acceptance, and God’s pleasure.

Prayer for our six – Pray that any of your six who would like it will experience some degree of “baptism” in to God’s love, acceptance, and pleasure – to know for themselves that they are a beloved child of God.

Spiritual Exercise – This week our spiritual exercise will be listening to and meditating on the words of Jesus, letting God speak to us through them. In today’s passage, Jesus is baptized into his identity as child of God. He hears God tell him, “You are my child, the one I love. I accept you and am proud of you.” Sit quietly and imagine God speaking these words to you. What is your reaction to these words? How are they easy or hard to receive? How do they encourage or inspire you?

God-Soaked World Bible Guide – Day 21

Sunday, March 26 – Selah (Review)

Taking our cue from the Psalms’ interlude moments of rest and meditation, we are introducing a new rhythm into the Bible guide from now until the end of the 40 Days. Each Sunday, we won’t introduce a new passage but will pause for reflection and review.

One way you can use this pause is for catch up. If you missed a day or more of the guide this week, you can look at one other day’s passage and enjoy it out of sequence.

A second way you can use this pause is to review one of the passages you especially enjoyed or that especially troubled you. Read it and the points of interest a second time, asking God to teach you something new and illumine something God would like you to notice. Try the spiritual exercise again and see where it takes you.

A final way you can use this pause is to touch base on the 40 Days of Faith experiment as a whole. Consider these prompts to do so.

How has it gone praying every day for God to do something for you? Has anything changed in your prayer, or in answer to your prayer?

What has it been like to pray for your six? Consider re-writing the six names below, or re-committing to prayer for six local people who seem to not be experiencing much from God. Have you seen anything happen – either in you or in their lives – in response to your prayers? Is there anything you would like to say to any of them?

How have you experienced God’s goodness so far? Have you learned anything about God, or seen any ways in which you live in a God-soaked world? Have you noticed anything that helps you engage with God’s presence with you?

Take a few minutes of silence with these questions, and see where they take you today. Close your time by thanking God for anything you notice, learn, or experience.

God-Soaked World Bible Guide – Day 20

Saturday, March 25 – Psalm 146

Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord, O my soul!
²I will praise the Lord as long as I live;
I will sing praises to my God all my life long.

³Do not put your trust in princes,
in mortals, in whom there is no help.
⁴When their breath departs, they return to the earth;
on that very day their plans perish.

⁵Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord their God,
⁶who made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them;
who keeps faith forever;
⁷who executes justice for the oppressed;
who gives food to the hungry.

The Lord sets the prisoners free;
⁸the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;
the Lord loves the righteous.
⁹The Lord watches over the strangers;
he upholds the orphan and the widow,
but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.

¹⁰The Lord will reign forever,
your God, O Zion, for all generations.
Praise the Lord!

Points of Interest:

Today we return to the jubilation we saw in Wednesday’s tour through Psalm 103. Rather than recalling the personal benefits we can experience from God, this poem invites us to reset our perspective on way things work in the world, particularly in times of injustice. God is doing more than we might first see, the psalmist says.
First off, the poet says that people are all going to die. Even powerful people don’t accomplish most of their plans and cannot either help or threaten people as much as they claim they can. The psalmist considers this morbid thought to be good news: human power is limited in a way that divine power is not.
While princes are making their plans and charting their wicked ways, where is God? God is feeding the hungry, releasing prisoners, helping the blind see. God is protecting immigrants and people with few rights and resources in the world. That’s where God is, and that’s what God will keep doing, the same God whose power will increase over time, never decrease.
To the powerless, the invitation is to celebrate this God who has their back. To the powerful and the not especially powerful or powerless, there’s maybe an invitation to align our priorities with a greater and better power.
To all of us, there seems to be a dare here to trust that God is present in human history, both when that seems evident to us and when it does not. (After all, there are orphans and widows and hungry and more in this poem. Life can be hard.) Praise is the hope-filled, joyful trust that a world full of power imbalances and hardship is still God-soaked.

Prayer for your six – Praise God for creating, loving, and helping each of your six. Bring each of them by name and face before your imagination, and tell God (however much you can believe this to be true!) that you love that God made them and is present to help them.

Spiritual Exercise – This week, after each Psalm, we’re practicing a simplified version of the Jesuit examen: examining our own life and thoughts and feelings, and connecting with God over what we find there. Today, examine three to five ways you see God as present on the earth. Choose one or more of these and praise God for God’s presence and help and goodness. When you’re done, ask God if God has anything else to reveal to you, and pause for a moment of silence while you listen.

Another way into this same exercise would be to examine three to five injustices you see on the earth, to choose one, and to ask God to show you how God is present and to be praised even in this situation.

God-Soaked World Bible Guide – Day 19

Friday, March 24 – Psalm 137

¹By the rivers of Babylon—
there we sat down and there we wept
when we remembered Zion.
²On the willows there
we hung up our harps.
³For there our captors
asked us for songs,
and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,
“Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

⁴How could we sing the Lord’s song
in a foreign land?
⁵If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
let my right hand wither!
⁶Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth,
if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
above my highest joy.

⁷Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites
the day of Jerusalem’s fall,
how they said, “Tear it down! Tear it down!
Down to its foundations!”
⁸O daughter Babylon, you devastator!
Happy shall they be who pay you back
what you have done to us!
⁹Happy shall they be who take your little ones
and dash them against the rock!

Points of Interest:

This psalm contains some of the more famous poetry of the Bible, not for how it ends but how it begins. It’s a song and a poem about song and poetry. Like movies about Hollywood, art about art is a big hit with artists. So this psalm has been set to music many times.
I suggest reading the psalm in three stanzas, each a mini-section of three verses.
Picture the scene of first three verses. Hundreds of miles from home, living as exiles in Babylon, a few Jews lean their instruments against nearby trees, sit down by the riverside, and together weep for their lost home, dashed hopes, and displaced lives. Along come a couple of Babylonians who mock them, telling them to sing one of their zippy songs about their so-called great God.
As with all oppressed people, direct engagement and violent resistance aren’t wise options in the moment. Likely the musicians politely decline the request to perform and grit their teeth in anger. In the middle three verses, they direct their rage inward, swearing loyalty to their homeland and vowing to not become comfortable amongst their captors.
In the final three verses, they express their rage-fueled prayer, that God would bring vengeance on their enemies. They ask God to remember each taunt, each word and act of violence against them. And they bless the people who will enact God’s revenge. They pronounce luck and good fortune against whoever will bring their enemies harm and smash the skulls of their enemies’ children!
This is jarring material to read in your Bible, is it not? How can we pray along with these words? Well, before we make them our own, we can start by recognizing that the Bible is sympathetic to all voices, and maybe especially to the voice of the disempowered. It may be the first work of history, for instance, that doesn’t simply tell the story of the victors. Over and over again, the Bible encourages all people to hear the voice of the marginalized, to listen and take seriously the lament of the disempowered. So there’s that.
Beyond this, there are at least two ways we can embrace the spirituality of these psalms of violent rage, while still trying to honor Jesus’ ethic of love for enemy. One is to spiritualize the enemy, taking a cue from one of Jesus’ first century followers who famously said that the most important human battles are never ultimately against human enemies. So we can pray defeat on the spiritual evil behind human wickedness and oppression.

Another way to embrace these prayers is to honor the spiritual and psychological freedom they endorse. The psalms, for the most part, speak from the perspective of people, not God. So God is not planning to bash our enemies’ children’s heads against rocks, but God isn’t offended if that’s the prayer we have in our hearts today.

Rather than censor our language or clean up our act before talking to God, the Bible invites us to sing whatever song we have today. We’re invited to engage with God with whatever we’ve got. Disengagement, not unbecoming thoughts and language, will pull us away from God and from God’s goodness to us.

Prayer for your city – Pray for the powerless in your city, for people on the losing ends of economic scarcity, domestic disputes, bullying, racism, or violence. Pray that as God hears the voices of the less powerful, that he will honor their rights and humanity and achieve justice on their behalf.

Spiritual Exercise – This week, after each Psalm, we’re practicing a simplified version of the Jesuit examen: examining our own life and thoughts and feelings, and connecting with God over what we find there. Today, examine three to five ways you have been wronged, or have been harmed by others. Choose one or more of these experiences and express your frustrations to God. When you’re done, ask God if God has anything else to reveal to you, and pause for a moment of silence while you listen.

God-Soaked World Bible Guide – Day 18

Thursday, March 23 – Psalm 131

A Song of Ascents. Of David.

¹O Lord, my heart is not lifted up,
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
²But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.

³O Israel, hope in the Lord
from this time on and forevermore.

Points of Interest:

Today’s psalm is a song for pilgrimage, sung while walking up the hilly road on annual journeys to the temple in Jerusalem. It doesn’t have the usual road trip, zippy vibe, through. It’s more like a lullaby, perhaps something travelers would sing before settling down to sleep at the end of a long day of travel.
The first two verses address God by personal name. When you see Lord, in small caps in English translations of the Old Testament, you’re usually seeing a formal translation of the Hebrew Yahweh, the Hebrew name for the God of Israel that dates back to Moses’ vision of the burning bush. It’s related to the Hebrew verb “to be,” and means something like “I am who I am,” or “I will be what I will be.” In a word, you might say Indescribable or Indefinable. Out of fear of disrespecting the name of God, Jews over time used this name less and less, but would sort of talk around God’s name. The English translation, Lord, is another way of doing this.
Speaking on intimate terms to Yahweh, the pilgrim lowers rather than raises her gaze. There are heart-racing realities in life, wondrous sites, big and complicated problems. Our pilgrim deliberately diverts her attention from things she doesn’t understand or might cause her anxiety. Instead, she takes a deep breath and turns her attention to what she knows about God – that God is good.
This calm and quiet leads to contentment. The image here is how a child can sit in its mother’s arms after weaning. Before weaning, the child near its mother’s breast thinks, “I want, I want. Get me more milk.” After weaning, the child can simply be – content and satisfied.
The psalmist takes a moment at the end of the poem to address her fellow pilgrims and whole people of Israel. Interestingly, she calls the place of contentment to which she has arrived hope. Perhaps this is an invitation – Be satisfied. Or perhaps it is a promise – turn to God, and you will be satisfied.
This invitation and promise is available now and bankable in perpetuity. Calm, quiet, satisfied, hope, forever.

Prayer for your city and country – Some commentators have argued that some measure of our national and international turmoil and contentious discourse is fueled by the anxiety that rapid change produces. What could the meditative practice of contentment in individuals do for whole communities and nations? Pray for an increase in hope and satisfaction in God in as big a patch of this world as your imagination can contain today.

Spiritual Exercise – This week, after each Psalm, we’re practicing a simplified version of the Jesuit examen: examining our own life and thoughts and feelings, and connecting with God over what we find there. Today, examine three to five ways you are content. Practice the deliberate simplicity of turning your attention away from other things and only focusing on those sources of contentment for a few moments. Thank God for satisfying you. When you’re done, ask God if God has anything else to reveal to you, and pause for a moment of silence while you listen.

God-Soaked World Bible Guide – Day 17

Wednesday, March 22 – Psalm 103

Of David.

¹Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and all that is within me,
bless his holy name.
²Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and do not forget all his benefits—
³who forgives all your iniquity,
who heals all your diseases,
⁴who redeems your life from the Pit,
who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
⁵who satisfies you with good as long as you live
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

⁶The Lord works vindication
and justice for all who are oppressed.
⁷He made known his ways to Moses,
his acts to the people of Israel.
⁸The Lord is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
⁹He will not always accuse,
nor will he keep his anger forever.
¹⁰He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities.
¹¹For as the heavens are high above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
¹²as far as the east is from the west,
so far he removes our transgressions from us.
¹³As a father has compassion for his children,
so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him.
¹⁴For he knows how we were made;
he remembers that we are dust.

¹⁵As for mortals, their days are like grass;
they flourish like a flower of the field;
¹⁶for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
and its place knows it no more.
¹⁷But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting
on those who fear him,
and his righteousness to children’s children,
¹⁸to those who keep his covenant
and remember to do his commandments.

¹⁹The Lord has established his throne in the heavens,
and his kingdom rules over all.
²⁰Bless the Lord, O you his angels,
you mighty ones who do his bidding,
obedient to his spoken word.
²¹Bless the Lord, all his hosts,
his ministers that do his will.
²²Bless the Lord, all his works,
in all places of his dominion.
Bless the Lord, O my soul.

Points of Interest:

Today we move from despondence to gratitude. This is connecting with God in perspective taking.
The psalms were compiled over centuries and only later were some attributed to specific authors. But for simplicity’s sake, we’ll call this poet David – the famously great king of a united Israel.
David compels his inner being to remember good things about God and praise God for them – it’s not entirely intuitive or natural but seems a good thing to do.
The repeated note to self here is to bless God. To bless is to speak words that are both good and true – it’s praising, celebrating, and thanking, all rolled into one.
So many qualities of God are remembered and appreciated that we won’t list or elucidate them all. Do you have any favorites? I love the promise of redemption, even while on the way to the Pit. God can bring good out of every bad situation, no matter how foreboding. I also love the line about God renewing our youth like the eagles’. This isn’t magical, fountain of youth thinking, but the gift of energy and vigor as needed, whether physical or mental or emotional.
This psalm is tied to old covenant spirituality – God’s love reserved for those in God’s tribe who properly respect and obey God and to their descendants. Almost immediately after this statement is a hint of the new covenant spirituality to come, when David proclaims that God’s kingdom extends over all people. Jesus’ new covenant spirituality is an invitation to all the peoples of the earth to know and love God, and be filled with God’s Spirit, enjoying the same God-soaked experience that David did.

Prayer for your Six – Pray that your six would practice gratitude today and experience the perspective taking and joy that a life of gratitude shapes.

Spiritual Exercise – This week, after each Psalm, we’re practicing a simplified version of the Jesuit examen: examining our own life and thoughts and feelings, and connecting with God over what we find there. Today, examine three to five ways you have experienced the goodness or help of God in your life, whether you recognized it as from God at the time or not. Choose one or more of these experiences to thank God for. When you’re done, ask God if God has anything else to reveal to you, and pause for a moment of silence while you listen.

God-Soaked World Bible Guide – Day 16

Tuesday, March 21 – Psalm 88

A Song. A Psalm of the Korahites. To the leader: according to Mahalath Leannoth. A Maskil of Heman the Ezrahite.

¹O Lord, God of my salvation,
when, at night, I cry out in your presence,
²let my prayer come before you;
incline your ear to my cry.

³For my soul is full of troubles,
and my life draws near to Sheol.
⁴I am counted among those who go down to the Pit;
I am like those who have no help,
⁵like those forsaken among the dead,
like the slain that lie in the grave,
like those whom you remember no more,
for they are cut off from your hand.
⁶You have put me in the depths of the Pit,
in the regions dark and deep.
⁷Your wrath lies heavy upon me,
and you overwhelm me with all your waves. Selah

⁸You have caused my companions to shun me;
you have made me a thing of horror to them.
I am shut in so that I cannot escape;
⁹ my eye grows dim through sorrow.
Every day I call on you, O Lord;
I spread out my hands to you.
¹⁰Do you work wonders for the dead?
Do the shades rise up to praise you? Selah
¹¹Is your steadfast love declared in the grave,
or your faithfulness in Abaddon?
¹²Are your wonders known in the darkness,
or your saving help in the land of forgetfulness?

¹³But I, O Lord, cry out to you;
in the morning my prayer comes before you.
¹⁴O Lord, why do you cast me off?
Why do you hide your face from me?
¹⁵Wretched and close to death from my youth up,
I suffer your terrors; I am desperate.
¹⁶Your wrath has swept over me;
your dread assaults destroy me.
¹⁷They surround me like a flood all day long;
from all sides they close in on me.
¹⁸You have caused friend and neighbor to shun me;
my companions are in darkness.
Points of Interest:

Many of the Psalms begin with short inscriptions regarding authorship, situation, or musical notation. Not all the meanings are known to us today. Here the author is Heman, who is mentioned briefly in a couple of other spots in the Bible for both his wisdom and his musical abilities. He also had many musician children. I just like his name, so we can say that one of the Bible’s prayer songs was written by He-man!
This is a bleak prayer, you may have noticed. It begins in desperation and ends with darkness.
Ancient Jews didn’t have a clear notion of an afterlife, but many believed the spirits of the dead lived in a Hades-like underworld named Sheol – not a happy place. This author’s life circumstances are so painful and hopeless they feel like death has arrived before its time.
“Selah” is likely a word for a musical interlude or meditative pause. So the author lays out the basic circumstance of hopeless difficulty so menacing it’s like being overwhelmed by a wave. After a pause, he jumps right back into it, remembering that he also has no friends that empathize with him and want to be with him in his difficulty.
After a second pause, the psalmist turns to God and wonders just where God is right now and what God is doing. The psalmist has no immediate answers to these questions. Best as he can tell, it feels like God is the source of his problems or is ignoring him entirely, abandoning him to his difficulty.
A note on God’s role in suffering: this isn’t saying that God causes our problems and suffering. This is one person feeling that way and having the emotional and spiritual freedom to blame God. Whatever role God’s Spirit played in helping humans write and compile the Bible, sentiments like these weren’t cleaned up or edited out. We’re given permission to pray authentically, whatever we are going through and whatever we have to say to God on any given day.
These psalms of complaint are formally known as psalms of lament – naming anger, frustration, and hardship to God and asking God to act. Many end with remembering or hoping for God’s goodness, but this one ends blaming God and saying, “All I’ve got right now is darkness.”

Prayer for your Six – Pray for any of your six who are going through hard times, whether those circumstances are known to you or not. Pray they would find friendship, hope, and connection to God in the midst of their difficulties.

Spiritual Exercise – This week, after each Psalm, we’re going to practice a simplified version of the Jesuit examen: examining our own life and thoughts and feelings, and connecting with God over what we find there. Today, examine three to five aspects of your life that discourage you. Make a short list. Choose one to talk with God about, saying whatever comes to mind. When you’re done, ask God if God has anything to reveal to you, and pause for a moment of silence while you listen.

God-Soaked World Bible Guide – Day 15

Monday, March 20 – Luke 11:5-13

⁵And he said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; ⁶for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.’ ⁷And he answers from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.’ ⁸I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs.

⁹“So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. ¹⁰For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. ¹¹Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? ¹²Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? ¹³If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

Points of Interest:

We’re hopping out of order for a day here. Week Four will take us into the life and teaching of Jesus, while we’ll spend the rest of this week in the ancient Hebrew prayer book of Psalms. Today, though, we take a detour through Jesus’ teaching on prayer to check in and see how our faith experiment is going thus far.
Jesus describes an unusual, but not impossible, dilemma of daily life in his culture. Guests show up from out of town, and hospitality code demands welcoming them in and feeding them. But you’re out of food, no bakers are open for business, and everyone has locked their houses and gone to bed. If you trouble your neighbor, they’re going to tell you to bug off, but if you pester them long enough, you’ll get your bread.
Fair enough, but then Jesus says this is what prayer is like. Pester God long enough, and you’ll get what you need. What do we make of this rather unflattering view of God, and the fact that this doesn’t always pan out in our experience? Well, it seems that this story is less about God and more about us. When Jesus talks about what God’s like, he shifts the analogy from sleepy neighbor to generous parent. God’s excited to give great gifts to his kids, and he finds it pleasurable – not annoying – for us to pester him about our wants and needs.
As for the implied guarantee that we’ll always get what we want, Jesus also clarifies by the end that what God most likes to give God’s kids is the Holy Spirit. God’s especially excited to give his kids connection and an experience of God’s goodness. The greatest gift of God is God. So, in the end, I read this story as inviting us to pester God with our wants and needs and to metaphorically root around in the refrigerator of God’s house. Engage with God in prayer, try to listen, keep an eye out for what God might be doing in our circumstances. We’ll always get something good as we ask, seek, and knock, whether it’s the thing we were first looking for or not.

Prayer for our six – Ask God to give each of your six a positive experience of having their needs met, whether they’re asking God for them at the moment or not.

Spiritual Exercise – Let’s take a few minutes to ask ourselves how our 40-day faith experiment is going thus far.

What have you been asking God to do for you?

Has anything changed so far in response to this prayer – either in the thing you’re asking for, or in you as the asker?

What has been your experience of asking, searching, and knocking? Are you enjoying the process? Do you want to give up and go home hungry? Are your knuckles getting tired, so to speak, from banging on the door?

Do you have any desire to change what you are asking for, or to change how it is you are asking in this season?

Are you in any way experiencing the gift of the Holy Spirit?

Since this week will be all about an invitation to relate to God exactly as we are today, take a moment to express to God whatever thanks or impatience or frustration or hope you feel at the moment.

Close by asking yourself what you would like to do with Jesus’ invitation to continue to ask, search, and knock.

God-Soaked World Bible Guide – Day 14

Sunday, March 19 – Jeremiah 31:31-37

³¹The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. ³²It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. ³³But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. ³⁴No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

³⁵Thus says the Lord,
who gives the sun for light by day
and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night,
who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—
the Lord of hosts is his name:
³⁶If this fixed order were ever to cease
from my presence, says the Lord,
then also the offspring of Israel would cease
to be a nation before me forever.

³⁷Thus says the Lord:
If the heavens above can be measured,
and the foundations of the earth below can be explored,
then I will reject all the offspring of Israel
because of all they have done,
says the Lord.

Points of Interest:

Jeremiah was a prophet to the Southern kingdom of Judah in the early sixth century B.C., over a hundred years before Nehemiah but after everyone else we’ve met so far. Jeremiah is often called the weeping prophet, as he had sad things to say in sad times. Jeremiah interpreted what God was doing in Judah in the country’s final years, just before Babylon destroyed the city and its temple and dragged its best and brightest residents into exile.
While Jeremiah’s insight into the present was overwhelmingly sad, he often sounds a cheery note about the future. Here Jeremiah says that God’s connection with people in the future will far eclipse any of even their best experiences in the past.
A covenant defines the terms of a relationship between two parties, including the promises they make to one another. Our marriage vows are an example of a contemporary covenant, just as God is referred to as Israel’s husband in this passage. Generally, in the Ancient Near East, covenants set terms between a more powerful ruler and a servant of that ruler, or a kind of sub-ruler that served under a greater leader’s authority.
In the waning days of his nation, Jeremiah sees God bringing an old relationship to a close. God brought Israel and Judah’s ancestors out of Egypt and gave the people laws to follow to live well as God’s people. In the destruction of Jerusalem, Jeremiah says, those days are over. But God will make a new covenant in the future. The new covenant will involve a different experience of:
- Law: God’s ways will be inscribed onto human hearts, rather than stone tablets or books.
- Authority: All types of people will have direct access to and relationship with God, so that teachers and priests don’t need to mediate connection to God for people.
- Connection: A rich relationship with God will be restored, with total forgiveness of all wrongs past.
In ancient covenants, blood often played a symbolic role in marking or sealing the promises. In his final dinner with them, Jesus told his friends and followers that his death marked the beginning of this new covenant of God with people.
Jeremiah ends this passage with poetry that celebrates God’s reliability and faithfulness. This is a good covenant partner, whose promises can be kept. Here the beneficiaries of this faithfulness are the offspring of Israel, who followers of Jesus understand to include all people on earth who connect with God through the person of Jesus.

Taking It Home:

Spiritual Exercise – Jeremiah and Jesus say that if we relate to God through the person of Jesus, God’s law will be written on our hearts, and we will know ourselves to be people known and loved by God. Choose one phrase from this passage. I recommend one of the following: “I will be their God,” “they shall be my people”, “they shall all know me,” or “remember their sin no more.” Sit quietly for a few moments, paying attention to your own breath and heartbeat. Then meditate on one of these phrases for a few more moments, seeing what it says to you today.
Prayer for your six– The new covenant vision is nothing less than all people, from the least to the greatest, knowing the goodness of God. Pray that each of your six will become aware of and appreciate God’s inclusion of and attention to them.

God-Soaked World Bible Guide – Day 13

Saturday, March 18 – Nehemiah 1:1-11

1 The words of Nehemiah son of Hacaliah. In the month of Chislev, in the twentieth year, while I was in Susa the capital, ²one of my brothers, Hanani, came with certain men from Judah; and I asked them about the Jews that survived, those who had escaped the captivity, and about Jerusalem. ³They replied, “The survivors there in the province who escaped captivity are in great trouble and shame; the wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been destroyed by fire.”

⁴When I heard these words I sat down and wept, and mourned for days, fasting and praying before the God of heaven. ⁵I said, “O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments; ⁶let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel, confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Both I and my family have sinned. ⁷We have offended you deeply, failing to keep the commandments, the statutes, and the ordinances that you commanded your servant Moses. ⁸Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples; ⁹but if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts are under the farthest skies, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place at which I have chosen to establish my name.’ ¹⁰They are your servants and your people, whom you redeemed by your great power and your strong hand. ¹¹O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants who delight in revering your name. Give success to your servant today, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man!”

At the time, I was cupbearer to the king.

Points of Interest:

In our last narrative from the Old Testament, we fast forward to the fifth century B.C. Both Israel to the north and Judah to the south have been routed by neighboring superpowers to the North and East. Nehemiah is the descendant of one of the many families who were taken into exile in the sixth century when Judah was destroyed by Babylon. Now Nehemiah is a court official in the ascendant global power of Persia, where he serves in the government of the famous king Artaxerxes.
One day Nehemiah hears the ancient equivalent of a news report. Friends and relatives visit him from the homeland to which he has never been. They tell him how awful the conditions are there. A broken down wall in this time guarantees a city’s vulnerability and poverty and also symbolizes national shame. Nehemiah lets himself be affected by this news – he weeps.
Nehemiah directs his sadness toward spiritual practice. He fasts, and he prays. Fasting and prayer aren’t antidotes to grief or need. They’re next steps. Fasting gives us a way to embody and focus the hunger and need we feel inside. And prayer is what to do when we fast – it’s telling God our sadness and what we yearn for God to do.
We’re allowed to vent and blame God and say whatever we want when we pray. We’ll see that next week. But in this case, Nehemiah takes partial responsibility for his culture’s ruin. “I and my family have sinned,” he says. He empathizes with the plight of his larger people group and takes a place of humble solidarity with their spiritual condition and physical need.
We see in Nehemiah’s prayer, as in so many other prayers of the Bible, Nehemiah reminding God of God’s promises as Nehemiah understands them. Learning God’s promises and reminding God of them seems like an especially recommended form of prayer.
We don’t see where in Nehemiah’s prayer that he gains a sense of direction. Perhaps he comes into it as he’s praying. But by the end of the prayer, his abstract request has become quite particular. Based on a personal reaction to news he heard, he’s asking God to provide the right moment to talk to his very powerful boss about this and asking God to help that conversation go well.
In the next chapter, Nehemiah repeats this prayer really quickly when the king asks him how he is doing, and Nehemiah realizes the moment has arrived. From the favorable conversation Nehemiah has with the king of Persia, Nehemiah’s life and the fate of his nation change forever. But that’s a story for another day.

Taking It Home:

Spiritual Exercise – What personal or public situation is causing you greatest sadness? If you’re not sure, take a moment to ask yourself. If you’re not fasting already for the 40 Days in some way, ask God if it would give direction to your sadness for you to fast and pray. If you’re fasting already, pray about this sadness however your prayers lead you. In your prayers, consider Nehemiah’s example. Take spiritual solidarity with others in pain, remind God of any relevant promise of God’s you know. And see if anything else comes to mind for you to pray or do today.
Prayer for your world – Think of a group of people that you in some way identify with but who are suffering. Perhaps you live in the same city or nation. Perhaps your ancestors were related or you have other cultural ties to this place. Ask God to carry the burden of this people and place’s suffering today.