Open Windows, Part 3: Morning Prayer (Be With Jesus)

Hi, welcome to the Vine Life Church podcast.

We're in Boulder, Colorado, and we're following Jesus by staying rooted in his presence, growing in his family, and living on his mission so that hearts are awakened with his awe-inspiring love.

And if we can help you in any way, reach out to us at vinelife.com.

For now, here's a short sermon from last week in my life.

Again, thanks for joining us.

Well, uh, over the last uh couple weeks, we have been in a little teaching series we've called Open Windows.

And uh if you haven't been here, I'm not gonna spend a ton of time trying to catch everybody up, but I'm just gonna read one of the texts um that we have been anchoring into over the last couple weeks, and really it's uh we we've been shining a spotlight on the life of Daniel, just one little uh part of his life.

Um we know that Daniel was a uh a bright, intelligent, really good-looking Jewish boy who got uh captured into Babylon.

They they knew he had all the goods, and so they trained him in their ways.

Um and but there were some places where he he drew the line.

One of those things is when they this they they signed a decree that said that you shall not pray or pray to any God or any man.

And promptly uh we read that Daniel does something different.

Daniel 6.10 says, When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem.

He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God as he had done previously.

Um that particular act got him in some trouble, but it was okay because we come to find out that the protection, the provision, the favor of God was upon him.

He was a man that, a young man, when he came into Babylon and grew into an old man in Babylon, served under four rulers, but he was one that was able to show us and give us a model for resilience.

He was he was able to live upright, an upright, steadfast life before God and man, even in his captivity.

Never once did he complain or resort to a victim mindset.

Rather, he kept in lockstep with God's promises of deliverance as he would pray towards Jerusalem, allowing him to not only live a life marked by devotion, but to also be a blessing into the city which God has called him to.

I believe this year for us, I just want to say it again if it hasn't been clear over the last couple weeks.

I believe this is a year that God is releasing this kind of Daniel spirit, this Daniel anointing to us in a fresh way.

I believe that He's calling us to be the kind of people who live unwavering and steady and focused, even in a time where there's not somebody standing behind us all day, every day, cheerleading us, telling us, good job, you're st you're keeping your faith.

We don't have that.

But I believe we're in a moment where God is building in a new resilience.

We're in a time on the globe where uh we haven't stopped this kind of pattern of massive disruptions, just so you guys are aware, this will continue to happen.

But God has not left us alone and he wants to build in strength and courage and boldness and endurance in the hearts of his people.

For those who are willing to step foot into that, and not only endurance and resilience, but he wants to unlock visions and dreams in the hearts of his people.

And I just want to speak that over you.

Over the last several weeks, I've had a lot of people come to me during worship here on Sunday morning, but throughout the week, God is depositing new dreams and new visions in the hearts of his people.

And that's available for you too, for those of you who are willing to ask for it.

I believe God wants to speak to you.

Is anybody with me this morning on that?

And so we're living in an exciting time.

One of the secrets of Daniel, as we just read, is holding fast to a daily prayer rhythm, which we talked about last week, and he would have this habit of going up to his bedroom where he had these wide open windows, and he would pray three times daily.

Not only did Daniel do this, David did this, he would worship morning, noon, and night.

We see Peter would do this, Jesus did this.

There was a life, there was a lifestyle and a habit that the people of God for ages carried of not just praying when they felt like it or praying when they, quote, felt led, which we should do, but they oriented their days around actual times where they could return their attention to the Lord.

I think there's a lot in there for us.

And so as a community, one of our, you know, for 2023, our vision for prayer this year is an invitation to adopt a daily prayer rhythm, pausing in the morning to be with Jesus, midday to pray for the loss, and evenings to reflect on our days in gratitude, allowing God to meet us in unique ways.

And a lot of this comes from this conviction that a flourishing prayer life requires both spontaneity and structure, much like any loving relationship does.

Spontaneity and structure.

It's a lot like jazz music.

I don't know if you have any jazz fans in the room.

Uh, I had this kind of fun opportunity last year when I was in New York City.

Some friends took me to this jazz club.

And it's always amazing when you see when you're around talented jazz musicians, um, because these guys are just going after.

They're just, I mean, it's all improvisational, at least seemingly all improvisational.

But when you actually study the life of a jazz musician, it's actually a very highly disciplined and structured um uh um genre of music.

Other genres are the same, but jazz in particular, that the musicians, in order to improvise, you actually actually have to know the modes and the structures and the patterns and the um uh you know the uh the movements of the music in order to be able to meet others in the same way and to be able to improv together.

And I think it's a great illustration because sometimes for us, we actually have to build in certain rhythms and order our life in a certain way so that at the times in between we can be able to begin to flow with spontaneity and improvisation with God, even in our prayer life.

It's it's also like a uh a vine, um, a vine in a vineyard, any new vine as it's sprouting up in a vineyard, a good vine, uh a good vine dresser or vineyard owner would not just let the vines just grow on the ground.

They would never be exposed to the sunlight, they would become dirty very quickly.

But what what vines need is a trellis on which to grow, something for it to be able to grow on top of.

And so we get this picture of a vine coming up this trellis, an ordered way of life that allows the spontaneous life to grow in and out of the gaps.

So that's what we're talking about when we talk about a daily prayer rhythm.

Historically, we we've the this could be categorized as spiritual disciplines, or as I like better, formational practices or spiritual delights.

Richard Foster said it like this: disciplines allow us to place ourselves before God so that he can transform us.

The point isn't religious rote, um, you know, just doing things for the sake of doing them.

The point is is love, a loving relationship with God where we allow ourselves to be interrupted to turn towards him throughout the course of our day so that he can transform us, so that he can continue to speak to us.

And so rhythms are not just one more thing that we're trying to get you to add to your already packed life.

They're gifts that if we receive them, I believe that they lead to flourishing.

And you've probably seen this too.

It actually is an active resistance to the way of the world.

And that's what we want to talk about a little bit this morning as we look at this first rhythm, this first open window, so to speak, of the day, which is our the morning window.

I want to talk about this for a second.

So I'm gonna read just a few passages before we jump in here.

Mark 135 says this, and rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.

My flesh longs for you in a dry and thirsty land where there is no water.

Psalm 5.3.

At each and every sunrise you will hear my voice as I prepare my sacrifice of prayer to you.

Every morning I lay out the pieces of my life on the altar and wait for your fire to fall upon my heart.

So if you're a morning person, everyone's secretly you know cheering on the inside.

If you're a night person, you're cringing about what's to come.

And so from time to time, people ask me questions about prayer.

How do you spend time with God?

When do you spend time with God?

How long?

You know, and it's not even worth getting prescriptive on this kind of stuff.

I I used to ask, you know, are you a morning person or are you a night person?

Just kind of fit it in with the flow of your day, encouraging, you know, encouraging them to find a time that works best for them.

But over the last few years it's actually changed for a couple reasons.

First, um, I know few examples of godly men and women who didn't actually have a habit of starting their day with Jesus, an actual time with Jesus.

I just don't have any.

That might exist.

I just don't have a lot of actual examples of people who didn't guard the first moments of the day with Jesus.

But secondly, there's something about the morning, guys.

There is something about the morning.

It's a special window, it lays a foundation and sets the tone for the rest of the day.

So let me just ask you a question.

If you were to think about this last week, just do a quick review of your mornings.

What seems to be the first thing that you pay attention to the moment you awake each day?

What's the first thing that you think about in the morning?

Right?

Exactly.

Where's the snooze button?

Can I have 30 more minutes?

Where's the Advil?

Right?

Maybe you didn't sleep well.

Maybe you had a child crawling on you in the middle of the night and that didn't go well, and so you're just like, oh man, are we really doing this again?

So maybe it was a restless night.

Maybe there was a lot of other things going on.

But in the morning, what we think about in the first hour actually has a tremendous effect on the rest of our day and the rest of our lives.

And so this is where we actually have a lot to learn from our friends in the neuroscience uh community, the discipline of neuroscience.

And I'm not a neuroscientist, I'm an armchair neuroscientist.

Um but one thing I you probably agree, God made our brain in a specific way, and it's actually highly adaptable to its environment.

In this way, your brain is like a sponge, okay?

And absorbs what you put into it.

And as I understand it neurologically, there's a window of time between uh when you sleep and when you really kick into high gear for the day.

When you first wake up in the morning, your brain switches from delta waves, which occur in the sleep state, to theta waves, which occur during a sort of daydreamy state.

The brain then moves towards alpha waves when you're awake but relaxed and not processing much information.

You're welcome, by the way.

You can take notes, you can go, you can go post that on uh Twitter later, okay?

Um so the the reason that matters is when we grab our phones in the morning, the for the first thing, we actually skip all of these stages that the brain needs to enter the day.

Um and when we when we grab our phones, we go, we skip all the stages and skip to the part where we're just wide awake and alert.

And this skips an important window of time where our brain is most susceptible to new thoughts, new ideas, and creative insights.

And so when we start our mornings and we immediately read or experience something negative first thing in the morning, it actually triggers a stress response and puts us on edge for the rest of the day.

It makes us more anxious and more distractable for the rest of the day.

This is actually something that happens.

Conversely, when you wake up and and and you're in a relaxed state, and this is just how God wired our brain.

This isn't any pop psychology or anything, this is just basic science, okay?

When you wake up and and you know and your brain knows that it's you're safe, you're free from harm, you're loved, you're cared for, you actually our bodies actually switch to what's called a responsive mode, which is like a home base.

And in responsive mode, our our bodies are actually able to repair and to refuel.

And so time spent in this home-based uh home-based mode actually strengthens our neural substrates and it creates more stability and focus.

And so, this whole idea of like neurons that fire together or wire together, something like that.

So, what we think about actually thickens in our brain.

What we're most aware of actually creates more thickness and density within our brain that carries us through the rest of the day.

It's almost like the a boat, the keel of a boat thickening, so that when it goes out into the waves as the wind and the waves come and try to knock it over, it's not as susceptible to being tossed to and fro every day.

How many of you, how many of us need that in our lives, right?

And so your thoughts in the first hour of the day actually leak into everything else you will experience.

It actually affects perception and cognition and interpretation of events of your day.

So when we start out stress, when we start out with negativity, what happens is that affects the way we interpret conversations and experiences of the day.

When we start out in love, we start out in peace.

It actually blankets and covers our perceptions of the day.

That's how powerful this stuff is.

Now, I will have you know, this month is uh interesting.

Since January 1st, we've been on this detox diet, and I don't say that with any measure of pride.

Um, it's it's uh it's just something I've we've been doing, I've been doing with my wife.

It's not even a fast, I'm not even gonna call this spiritual, it's literally just a diet.

And so uh we've eliminated like several different food groups, grains and sugars and alcohol and um uh different things from our diet for this month.

Um and uh and so I as I've been reading the scriptures, there's been new words that have been sticking out to me.

Um, specifically in 1 Peter, he talks a lot about this word sober-minded.

And um, you know, and we've been on this detox, specifically eliminating inputs into our bodies so that our body can push out the junk and and grow in health.

And so I've been reading in 1 Peter over the last couple weeks, and he keeps coming back to this word sober-minded.

He's writing to exiles who are scattered across Asia Minor.

And he he they're they're not at home, they're in the far reaches of the land.

He sends these letters to try to encourage them and to uh you know, to try to equip them from you know as best he can.

And so 1 Peter 1 13 says this therefore, preparing your minds for action and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 4 7, the end of all things is at hand, therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers.

1 Peter 5.8, be sober-minded, be watchful.

Your adversary, the devil, prowls around around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.

So, from Peter's lens, sober-mindedness is one of the main things that he wants the people of God to inhabit in their life.

Now, when I hear the word sober-minded, immediately I think of being free from drugs and alcohol, which um which absolutely you know that could be one of the interpretations here.

But the word sober-minded actually means to be free from any intoxicating influences.

Any intoxicating influences.

You know, there's more intoxicating influences in our life than just what we put into our bodies, there's also the things that we put into our minds.

And so what happens when we wake up and the first thing we do is check the stock market that just fluctuates every day.

We're literally giving ourselves to something that is fickle, that can change every five minutes.

And we're entrusting our first thoughts to something that can't decide what it wants to do.

Or maybe the first thing we do in our first moments is we check our email, and basically when we do that, our first thoughts are going to uh submitting to somebody else's agenda for what we should what is most important for the day.

But we feel like we need to start the day.

Some of us start with a to-do list of what needs to be done.

Some of us start with the social meet with social media, which basically means I'm going to entrust the my first the first moments of my day to an algorithm who is deciding what is most important for me to experience right now, which is rarely profitable.

Or the news, because what's better than starting the day with a healthy dose of global atrocities?

Right?

And so what happens, and again, I'm not anti-any of these things, we're just talking about order here.

Our first thoughts oftentimes can be come like clouds and they follow us the rest of the day.

Dr.

Caroline Leaf says it like this she says 75 to 98% of mental and physical behavioral illnesses comes from one's thought life.

Now, that you that that could be debatable, um, but I I think the point's well taken.

Our thoughts are not just abstract uh occurrences, they're actually things that shape us from the inside out.

God, uh Caroline Leaf also said this: God designed humans to observe our own thoughts, catch the ones that are bad, and to get rid of them.

Okay?

So what does all this mean?

I believe that the reason why Jesus guarded his morning moments with the Father, which is why some of the mothers and fathers of this faith took their morning moments and guarded uh their time with the Father, is because they knew that their first thoughts were actually going to be the gifts that they offered the rest of the day.

It would become their reality for the rest of the day.

It would become the foundation from which they launched from.

And the reality is the state you are in is the state that you give to others.

So if you're feeling stressed and anxious, we're and we're starting our day like that, that becomes the gift that our lives inadvertently leak out to others.

And yeah, the converse is true.

This is the main point, though.

What if we started our days soaking our minds and hearts in the love of God?

And it's much like a sponge.

Our brains are like a sponge, and so there's something that happens.

There's something that happens when we there's something that happens when we curate our thoughts and we don't rush into our day, but we allow ourselves to wake up.

Because our brains oftentimes take what's given to them, and then that becomes what leaks out the rest of the day.

Now, for a lot of us, if we're used to our kids waking us up, our dog plummet plummeting our bed, our you know, a lot of us, just to be fair, we just our day kickstart, so we just start.

And that's it.

We're doing the best we can.

And listen, there's grace and mercy to all of us here.

And I have a lot of days like that.

I am not coming to you from a place of perfection.

I'm coming to you humbly submitting that the way we curate our time in the morning uh is really important.

And and for a lot of us, we do our best just to get a little splash of Jesus in the morning.

Can I just get a little dose?

Right?

And so we wake up and just with the bare moments we can get, we just come to him, we're like, all right, God, boo! And we're hoping that that little thing, whatever that was, is enough to kind of really sustain us the rest of the day.

So then we start our days, and then the the things start coming, and the messages, and the pressures, and the expectations, and and it comes to what are we able to leak out the rest of the day, right?

And so all these things start coming, and we're just, you know, the rest of the day though, there's not a lot of there's not a lot that we can flow out from from the rest of their day if if we're splashing in and splashing out.

But there's something powerful when we recognize that the word of God actually has an effect on us, it has an effect on our minds and our hearts.

And there's something about permeating, soaking long enough, staying with the voice of God long enough to receive his words and let it get deep.

And let it respond.

Because when we soak, then the words of the enemy start coming, and we actually have a response.

If it's true that the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, then he's not too far off from telling us, you're a loser.

You think that you can you think that you can escape all these bad decisions that you've made in your life?

And then then if we're soaking in the word of God, we have something to respond with.

We can respond to say the Spirit of God has been given to me.

It's not a spirit of fear, it's a spirit of adoption by which I cry, Ah the Father.

God loves me.

And then the enemy comes back and says, You are so behind on your finances.

You think you're ever gonna catch up?

You think you can actually dig yourself out of this pit that you're in?

Then the word of God comes and says, My God will supply all of my needs according to his glorious riches.

The enemy returns.

Don't you know that these people are going to leave you?

These people that you're investing in, they're gonna leave you high and dry.

Because that's what's always happened to you.

And you've always been rejected, you'll always be rejected, and you're gonna end your life alone.

And he comes and he tries to reinforce these thoughts, but then the one who's steeped in the word of God can respond, My God will never leave me or forsake me.

Where can I go from your spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?

If I rise to the heavens, you're there, if I go to the depths, you're there, your right hand guards me from every side.

How good is it to have a mind and a heart that's soaked in the very presence and the love of God in such a way that it can actually spill out into every moment of our lives.

And the reason this matters, guys, the reason this is such a big deal is because I know, I know the types of lives that we live.

Many of us start our days and we we feel like we can't step out of a pattern of anxiety and stress.

And if you're facing chronic anxiety and stress, I'm not making light of what you're going through.

I am but I am advocating God has more for you than to start and end your days steeped and soaked in anxiety and stress.

God has more for you.

And I believe that the invitation for us is to believe that we are loved sons and daughters, and we can stand to start our day not in lack, not as a victim, but just soaking in the belovedness of the Father.

Who's in for that?

And so we the invitation is to start our days in belovedness.

Now, I don't want to get prescripted, but I do want to tell you a little bit about my my mornings.

I love my mornings.

They don't always go super well.

Not everything's in my control.

Um, but I oftentimes um for years I've I've had a practice of starting my mornings and having habits to be with Jesus.

But sometimes I would just frame them in as, what do you want me to know, or what do you want me to do?

You know, and I read scripture, but I just kind of asking God, all right, is there anything you have for me?

Which is a good place to start.

During my sabbatical this last year, I started a new practice because I felt like there was an invitation from the Lord to get a picture of the Father.

And I was reading through the Gospel of John, and almost every passage of Jesus in the Gospel of John starts with Jesus talking about how him and his father do everything together.

He only says what the father's saying, he only does what the father's doing.

And I just I felt like for me that the father was trying to speak to me, that I wasn't just doing things for him or just learning things for him, but he wanted to live life with me in a deeper way in every day.

And so I started this new practice, and of course, I always start with uh uh you know a chemex full of local craft coffee because even God drinks coffee, all right?

Um and uh and sometimes I listen to instrumental music, um, but then I'll read the scriptures and I'll journal any new thoughts that come to in the day as I'm reading the scripture.

But I started this new practice where I would wait for a picture.

I would stop and just in silence and solitude, I'd say, Father, show me what you're doing today.

And I get a picture of him in this house and what he was do what he's doing.

And sometimes he's working on the house, sometimes he's playing games with the kids, sometimes we go on a walk outside the house and he shows me new thing new things around the property.

Sometimes he just says, Let me look at you in the face.

And it's highly experiential, and I'm not saying any of this as if you need to do this.

I'm just saying for me, there's been this transformation that's happened when I've just come with the question of Father, what is it that you're doing today, and how can I join you in what you're doing?

And then the rest of the day becoming aware that we're doing those things together.

I'm not just doing something for him, I'm not just leading a church for him while he's out there playing golf or something like that.

We're doing things together.

And it's been transformational because I can start every day in the gaze of the Father, him looking it in my eyes and say, You are my beloved son.

You've already won today.

You've already won.

You don't have to do anything else.

It doesn't matter what anybody says to you, it doesn't matter what you don't get done, and you're not going to get everything done that you want to get done, doesn't matter who you let down today, you've won because you're my son.

Now go and live.

Now go and do your thing today.

And I'm telling you, it's it's it's transformed so much because the foundation from which I'm starting anything that I'm doing is from belovedness.

And this is the foundation he wants all of us to start because the way that God transforms the world is through transformed sons and daughters.

He's not just hiring employees to do things for him, he's adopting sons and daughters into his family so that he can look at you in the eyes and say, You've got it.

You've got it.

I am in you, you're in me.

Now let's go live together, let's do this thing.

So mornings with Jesus are profound, they're significant.

Now, here's a few encouragements.

Maybe some of you already have this habit, and that's fantastic.

I just want to add fuel to the fire.

Some of you have been doing this for years.

That's fantastic.

Keep going, okay?

A few encouragements though for mornings.

Number one, I just want to encourage you in the first mornings to make it an active resistance to noise and distraction by embracing silence and solitude.

It's the time of the day where there begins this gravitational pull of noise and speed that is waiting to accelerate you into a frenzy.

And the morning is a time.

Whatever time you wake up, the morning is a time to resist that, to embrace silence before God and solitude.

Not even and even take a moment, not even asking anything from the Lord, but just becoming aware of his love for you, that you are his beloved.

And that's the place where you get to start.

Number two, I'd encourage you to commit to scripture before screens.

And I think as a habit this year, I would love of every person here, we just knew that every day we started, doesn't matter what time you wake up, scripture before screens, before you make, you know, before you pick up that thing, and you start kind of flipping and scrolling and swiping right and swiping left, whatever you're doing, to go get a hardcover Bible, an actual book with pages.

You remember these things?

And open it and submit yourself to it and let God speak to you.

And order your day around the thoughts that are the most important.

Say, God, I'm I'm I'm showing up to your word today, and then get to the news and all the global atrocities, right?

Start with the word and then get to your social media.

Start in the word and then get to the stock market and your emails and your to-do list.

But when we start with the thoughts of God, we're allowing him to transform us and realign our lives according to his purpose.

So, so to recap, a couple things.

Embrace silence and solitude.

Commit to scripture before screens.

Everybody say scripture before screens.

Yes.

Can't you feel that?

Third, pray, take a moment to pray over your day.

I I have this habit of I actually write out everything I committed to for that day.

I don't I have it in my phone, but then I also write it out, and then I imagine every errand, every appointment, everything I'm supposed to do, but doing it in the presence of God.

I imagine everything I've committed to as if I'm doing it with the Father.

And asking him, how would you go into this meeting?

What gift do you have for this person today?

Is there anything I've overcommitted to today?

Is there anything I've undercommitted to today?

And I just I just review the day.

And it doesn't have to take long, guys.

I'm not talking about you know half a day.

I'm just talking, you know, a few intentional movements that allow us to open a window, turn our eyes to Jesus, and say, Soak me in your thoughts.

And guess what?

When we do that, not only does stress and anxiety decrease, it actually helps with sleep, it helps with problems problem-solving skills, and you're just a more likable person.

Okay?

You're more likable.

People who are loved on the inside are generally more likable.

You want to be around those people.

Now, do we get it right all the time?

No.

The moment you start this habit, will something interrupt you?

Of course it will.

Will you it's just like any habit you start and any rhythm we submit ourselves to, is it gonna fall flat in a couple weeks?

Are you gonna feel bad at what you're doing?

Of course.

But it's worth tending to.

It's a garden that's worth tending to.

And when you get off track, you don't beat yourself up in shame.

You say, all right, I get to wake up tomorrow morning again and be with you, Jesus.

And so I just want to encourage us, and as we're ending this time here this morning, I want to encourage you.

If you are here and and you're coming and you feel a tension in your chest, you feel a pressure on your shoulders, you feel a tightening in your gut, or a racing heart, or a spinning mind.

Listen, you're not alone.

You're not alone.

But I believe the father wants you to know that that doesn't have to define your life, and it does not have to define your days.

And it may have been, maybe the season has felt intense like that, but I just believe that even right now, across the room here today, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Father, wants to remind you of your belovedness, that you are a beloved son and daughter, and regardless of whatever else you do today, you've already won because you're his.

You're his.

He loves you.

He loves you.

And he is intent on disentangling and freeing and unraveling and unlocking every part of your heart and your mind so that you can live, you can work, you can relate, you can sleep, you can order your life in wholeness, the wholeness of the kingdom of God.

Every part of your life is integrated.

So I'm gonna pray for you here in a second, but for the rest of us, imagine going to work in the love of God.

Imagine going to Home Depot in the love of God.

I mean, Home Depot is good enough as it is, but going there in the love of God, imagine cooking dinner in the love of God.

Imagine being with others in the love of God, even the unlikable moments, the errands, the things that we kind of sometimes think are godless.

Imagine doing every part of life in the love of God because love is a lifestyle and a love is a rhythm.

And it starts with us saying, Yes, God, I will submit myself, I will turn my attention to you.

Amen?

Okay, let's stand together.

And uh I I do want to pray for us.

I I know that the the stuff with anxiety is such a big thing right now.

Guys, our thoughts, the things that are coming, it's unprecedented.

What you're facing every day, what's waiting for you the moment that you wake up.

It's unprecedented.

But God is committed to your freedom.

He is completely committed to your freedom.

So across the room, just close your eyes across the room.

And if you would like to just receive a gift from the Lord today, I just maybe you don't know the Lord, maybe this is all new to you, but we do this thing where we put our hands out like this, and it's almost like we're receiving a gift.

I just invite you to do it.

And I want to pray for us here today.

God, across the room, we've come here because your way is the way of life, and your way leads to freedom.

And I pray for my friends here today as we're learning to order ourselves to you and even cultivate a rhythm of prayer this year that allows us to pay attention to what you're doing even more consistently.

I just I pray right now as we talk about submitting the more the moments of our mornings to you, I pray for grace and strength.

And God, I pray that across this room, even that you would let anxiety dissolve in the name of Jesus.

You'd let chronic stress dissolve in the name of Jesus, chronic worry, discontent, frenzy, the things that God, we just get caught up in.

I just pray right now in the name of Jesus that the peace of Christ, which which transcends understanding, would guard every heart and every mind in Christ Jesus.

I thank you that your invitation to us through the cross of Christ, through the blood that was shed and the body that was broken, is that we would be adopted into your family and that we would respond to your great love for us.

So help us to receive and hear the words, I love you, I love you, you're mine.

Nothing can separate you from my love.

I thank you, God, to make us a people who are free and courageous and bold and spilling out the love of God and everything that we do and say.

It's only by your grace and mercy that we can do this, God, and I thank you for this invitation this morning.

May it be to your glory, God.

And it's in Jesus' name we pray.