NorthStar Community Daily Devotional

January 7

Scripture focus: "Do what I tell you, all my decrees and laws; live by them so that the land where I'm bringing you won't vomit you out. You simply must not live like the nations I'm driving out before you. They did all these things and I hated every minute of it. "I've told you, remember, that you will possess their land that I'm giving to you as an inheritance, a land flowing with milk and honey. I am GOD, your God, who has distinguished you from the nations. So live like it: Distinguish between ritually clean and unclean animals and birds. Don't pollute yourselves with any animal or bird or crawling thing which I have marked out as unclean for you. Live holy lives before me because I, GOD, am holy. I have distinguished you from the nations to be my very own. Leviticus 20:22-26, The Message

Prayer is a direct way to ask God what he expects of us. I find this essential when reading through the book of Leviticus. God tells his people to live by all the decrees and laws set before them. He reminds the Hebrew people that they are chosen and set apart for holy living. He challenges them to take a different path than those who have behaved in ways he hates. In the New Testament, the various writers describe prayer using various Greek words that indicate that prayer was by its very nature much like the way we talk to one another.

My husband and I have a lot of conversations, most of them mundane. I asked him this morning if he would please take out the trash because I could smell it all the way upstairs – and he did. He asked me if I had called about getting our treadmill moved to another room – and I responded that no, I had not. I offered to pick up dinner on my way home from a meeting. He asked if it would suit me for him to go workout right after work. These conversations are not sexy, but they are part of the framework of building a life together.

Last night I came home late from church because I sat and listened to a woman tell me about how she and her husband go for weeks without speaking to each other. Oh, how she longs for the mundane. She doesn’t want wine and roses, big rings and romantic trips to exotic locations – she desires a husband who is willing to be fully present in the mundane. I find it absolutely astounding that God meets me in the mundane. I can imagine that when I pray, God doesn’t just mute ESPN news and read the ticker tape at the bottom of the screen while I chatter away. He turns off the television.

Prayer is our chance to ask God things like, “What exactly do you mean when you tell me to live a holy life AND remind me that ‘all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of the Lord’ ”? Prayer is our opportunity to tell God how ashamed we feel when we promise to bring home dinner but arrive so late that our husbands accidently ate dog food thinking it was leftover stuffing from the Christmas turkey. Prayer is the privilege of talking to God without having to go through security or sneak into a party without an invitation. Prayer is a privilege.

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