At the beginning of this new month we invite you to take a few minutes to prayerfully place yourself in a posture of openness to God. Whatever lies ahead in the days and weeks to come, we don’t want to miss one ounce of God’s presence within it. This prayer can help attune our awareness to that presence.

                   

Click Here for a guided posture prayer experience “I Open”
* Consider pausing the video with each section, to spend even more time than the short video allows.

                                   

                                                

‘Visio Divina’ is a fancy term for a simple practice that invites us to encounter God in deep new ways, through drinking in the visual beauty constantly before us. Believing that the presence of God is powerfully felt through creation and the natural world around us – and yet also knowing that our lives typically run so fast we barely have time to notice it! – we invite you today to spend a few minutes contemplating the beauty and majesty of God through the ordinary extraordinariness of a tree.

                   

Click Here for an 8-minute Visio Divina practice.

                                   

                                                

Today we invite you to join Jesus in weeping at the graveside of so many broken things in this world, through the practice of breath prayer.

                   

Where are you hurting? Where is the world hurting? How might Jesus help you learn how to breathe through those tears with healing and hope?

                   

Click Here for a 9-minute Breath Prayer experience: Jesus Wept

                                   

                                                

Scripture: Click Here to read Philippians 4:4-9
Read the passage over slowly, prayerfully and attentively a few times. As you do, allow God to highlight

                   

a word, phrase or verse – something that jumps out at you personally.

                   

Observations: Think about what is being said, by who, and why they might be saying it the way they are. What is the surrounding context? What other background information do you have? How and where do you see the heart of Jesus in this? Don’t make conclusions or applications yet, just observe everything you can.

                   

Application: Now consider how this passage might apply personally to your life. In what way does it speak to your own circumstances? How can it help you? How does it challenge you? How does it call you to love both God and others better? How does this word from God apply directly to your day-to- day life and how you are learning to follow Jesus?

                   

Prayer: Now that you’ve read and reflected on God’s word and begun the process of application to your life, simply talk to God about it all. Share what’s swirling in your head and heart, allow space to listen for what the Holy Spirit is wanting to say to you in return as well.

                                   

                                                

Today we invite you into the practice of prayerful worship, with the song Your Love Is Strong. Before you begin to sing, pause to consider some of these words:

                   

“So why should I worry? Why do I freak out? God knows what I need You know what I need.”

                          

1. Where do these words ring true for you in your experience?                          
2. Where are you still longing to see this become more real in your life?                                     

                   

With both of these realities in mind, click the link below and bring your full heart before God in worship – both in gratitude for the presence you have already experienced, and in prayer for the healing and hope you’re still longing for.

                   

Click Here for Your Love Is Strong by Jon Foreman