April 5 2023

PRAY THE PICTURE

Every day, we invite you into the ancient spiritual prayer practices of Lectio and Visio Divina. Each day you will be given a picture to meditate on in prayer, Visio Divina or “eating/digesting the image,” asking the Holy Spirit to prompt things from the image for you to pray into and to fill the image with spiritual meaning. Most of these visuals will connected to the concept of “Saturation” and will be connected to the insights included in each day’s prayer fuel.

We encourage you to start your prayer time each day by sitting in silence with the picture and listening for the Holy Spirit’s direction. It might also be meaningful to return to the image after you have read the additional pieces of the prayer fuel, using it to wrap up your time of intercession and giving the Holy Spirit the opportunity to speak through it on even deeper levels. May you be blessed as you engage your Creator in visually inspired prayer.

PRAY WITH CULTURAL INSIGHT

Any Moroccan who heard Jesus’s claim of “I am the Bread of Life” would most likely immediately know what He was claiming. Moroccans understand that bread is life. Bread is eaten with breakfast, lunch and dinner. And it’s baked fresh every day. Each woman has her tried and true favorite recipe for the dough, and every kitchen churns out a slightly different shape or size even from day to day. Eventually all dough rounds find their way to the community oven, where they are baked in hot furnaces of open flames. In fact, the bakery and the local water fountain are often found in the heart of every given neighborhood. Bread serves not just to fill out a meal, but it also functions as the utensil, and is regularly dipped into various soups, scoops up sauce rich in spices, and is slathered with a delightful array of condiments, like homemade jams, fresh goat cheese, or raw honey often with piece of the comb still intact. But the true base of almost any Moroccan dish is rich, fresh oil. Morocco is famous for its oils—in the North it is olive oil, grown in vast groves of trees and pressed on site, often still using the traditional stone presses, while in the South, you will encounter the unique-to-this-region Argan oil with all its nutty goodness.  Regardless of which decadent oil you get, nothing will quite highlight its flavor and richness like a chunk of fresh baked bread, soaking up every last drop. Nothing speaks “saturation” to a Moroccan like the image of bread dipped in their beloved oil.

As we pray saturation over the country of Morocco, we are asking that’s God’s healing presence would completely coat the wounds and vulnerable places in each Moroccan heart like oil saturates bread as it is dipped. Ask that dry and crusty hearts would soak up the personal reconciliation that Jesus offers us and be transformed with the rich inheritance Jesus’s blood bought for each of us.

PRAY THE WORD 

Each day, as we engage the practice of Lectio Divina, “eating/digesting the Word,” the Scripture we will pray comes from a community of prayer from within Morocco that has been praying Saturation over Morocco.

Adjective: “Saturated”—holding as much water or moisture as can be absorbed; thoroughly soaked
Noun: “Saturation”—the degree or extent to which something is completely absorbed

This group is daring to pray audacious prayers of saturation—asking for God’s Kingdom to come to Morocco to such an extent that it is completely absorbed in His truth, presence, and transformation. Keep this in mind as you pray these Scriptures and join with those who are already praying audacious prayers on behalf of Morocco.  

Psalm 65:10 “You water all its fields and level the lumpy ground. You send showers of rain to soften the soil and help the plants sprout.”

Ask for the Holy Spirit to prepare the spiritual ground in Morocco so that seeds of truth can sprout, grow and multiply.

PRAY THE SONG

Jesus, You are the Bread of Life.  Help us to hunger and thirst for You above all other things…

“Hungry” by Kathryn Scott