Original Blessing
(Devotion by Graeme Harrison)
Prayer:
A Prayer for the Inland
(A Prayer written for different circumstances that mirror our own)
Lift our eyes, O Father,
that we may see our fellow citizens
even to the furthermost shores of our continent.
Quicken our imagination
until their lives become clear to us.
Call to our remembrance
our own struggles and difficulties when isolated,
our own sighings when in loneliness.
Open our hearts,
that our love may flow out in warm streams of blessing,
expressed in things both seen and unseen.
Keep and enable all whom we have sent forth in your name.
Follow our pioneers through all their days:
in the midst of drought or flood, keep them from harm;
in the days of loss, give them patience;
in time of temptation, strength;
in the season of pain, joy.
Especially we ask you to bless the children
in isolated homes:
enrich their lives, and make them great;
let your protecting wings cover them;
may the Holy Spirit –
who knows no distance, no time, no barrier –
comfort, inspire and perfect them.
Let the love of your Son flow about us all
and bring us to the rest of your eternal kingdom;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
A prayer written in 1915 by the Revd John Flynn, 1880-1951, the founder of the Australian Inland Mission and the Royal Flying Doctor Service.
(Sourced from A Treasury of Prayers in Uniting in Worship, copyright 1988 Uniting Church in Australia)
Read:
Genesis 1:26-31. Read this 3 times, each time asking God’s help and thinking about those words or phrases that leap out at you.
26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.
(Genesis 1:26-31NIV)
Thought for the Day:
The view of many outside the church is that we have an unhealthy interest in sin. Original Sin, a theory around the sinfulness of every human being, seems to be one of our best known ideas but is that a true reflection of what Genesis is trying to tell us?
Surely, Genesis begins with a focus on ‘original blessing’. In other words, human being were made to be blessed by God and we still are. Is that how you see yourself; blessed? There is a lot of conflicting things happening in life for all of us but Genesis at this point in the story wants you to know just one thing, you are under God’s blessing.
Push everything else from your mind right now and whisper your prayer to God, “I am blessed by you, thank you.”