NorthStar Community Daily Devotional

January 2

Scripture focus: Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you. I am emphatic about this. The moment any one of you submits to circumcision or any other rule-keeping system, at that same moment Christ's hard-won gift of freedom is squandered. I repeat my warning: The person who accepts the ways of circumcision trades all the advantages of the free life in Christ for the obligations of the slave life of the law. I suspect you would never intend this, but this is what happens. When you attempt to live by your own religious plans and projects, you are cut off from Christ, you fall out of grace. Meanwhile we expectantly wait for a satisfying relationship with the Spirit. For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love. Galatians 5:1-6, The Message

They say that there are no atheists in foxholes. Presumably, everybody instinctively prays when faced with dire circumstances and conditions beyond our control. People actually write books on the subject.* If people in foxholes are compelled to pray, it occurs to me that perhaps those of us who often find ourselves acting like muddy pigs and dogs who return to their vomit would benefit from learning how to pray. I’m not talking about the kind of prayer that one utters from a foxhole – I’m talking about learning what it means to maintain conscious contact with God.

In ancient Greece, prayer involved making requests to various “gods” with the understanding that these requests – and the response of the “gods” - would determine destiny. These folks believed that their very existence was dependent on the divine disposition of the gods.

While these dependent men and women prayed to the gods of their understanding, it is helpful to know what they believed about their gods. They understood that gods were neither moral nor beneficent, so they bribed them with offerings and sacrifices, vows and various forms of wooing.

What they prayed for was also interesting – they asked their gods for things. These things were concrete and physical; they related to goals and personal achievement. They did not seek peace for the soul or the courage to live in accordance with their convictions. They did not bother themselves with issues related to integrity, character and service to others.

How do you pray? And what do your prayers say about what you believe about God, yourself, and your place in his story?

*See Albert Belden, The Practice of Prayer (New York: Harper & Brothers, n.d.), pp. 7-8; also, Harry Emerson Fosdick, The Meaning of Prayer (New York: Association Press, 1915), pp. 9-18.

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