Less is More…
Daily Readings
Day 1: Psalm 63
Day 2: Psalm 63
Day 3: Psalm 63
Day 4: Psalm 63
Day 5: Psalm 63
For the last ten years at Upper Room, we have set apart the first full week of the new year as a Week of Prayer. We gather each night, for five nights in a row, to pray, to seek, to cry out, to confess. To ask God for more. To be more for us. To have more of us. To do more in and through us.
So, for this week’s Community Bible Reading, we simply want to help to complement our communal prayer times with some opportunities for personal prayer as well. And to do that, we thought less would be more.
So rather than five different readings for each day, why not take this week to focus your heart and your prayer on the one prayer of Psalm 63 – the psalm that this week’s sermon focused on. It’s a psalm of desire for more of God. And it’s one that is a beautiful guide in shaping our own desires.
Here’s a simple way that might help you prayerfully reflect on this psalm. Try doing it each day this week, and who knows how God might speak to you through it. Perhaps He may lead your thoughts to reflect on a different aspect of the psalm each day. Or perhaps He may want to zero you in on just one or two words or ideas for the whole week. However He leads, it can be a good practice at times to simply camp out in one smaller portion of Scripture. To pray through it, and chew on it slowly. In doing less, God can often do more…
This is a simple form of prayer and reflection called Lectio Divina, or spiritual reading…
1) Read through the psalm slowly. Pay attention to any word or phrase that might jump out at you. Take a moment to let that word or phrase set in to your mind and heart.
2) Read through the psalm slowly a second time. As you do, consider what God may be saying to you through the word or phrase that stuck out in your first reading. Take a moment to listen to what He may be saying.
3) Read through the psalm a third time. This time, ask God how He wants you to respond in light of what you’ve heard Him say. Is there a certain heart posture He is calling you into? Is there a specific action step He may be calling you to make? Take a moment to listen to Him, and make a commitment to Him to respond in faith.
Take a few minutes to try this practice each day this week, and be expectant for God to speak