March 26 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

As you probably know, during the month of Ramadan, Muslims fast from food, water, and other things deemed pleasurable, like sex and smoking, from sunrise to sundown. In many locations around the country the time to begin and end fasting each day is still announced by the firing of a large cannon set on a hill above the city so all will hear and know. In other places, the signal is announced through the extra loud cries from the mosque minarets. In the wee dawn hours, when it’s still fully dark outside, this signal is often the sound of bedtime, as many Moroccans who have spent most of the night eating and preparing food are turning in for rest. For most Moroccans, the daily schedule moves forward several hours to accommodate these late nights. Schools and businesses often open several hours later during the fasting, and good luck finding a place to buy groceries before noon during this month!

In the evening hours of dusk, right as the sun is setting, you will find the streets eerily deserted, as every Moroccan will be found sitting around their living room table, a veritable feast set before them as they await the signal that they can start eating.  While for many it is a time of piety, for them it is an obligatory ritual and not a willing sacrifice in response to God’s love. Because this fasting is done out of striving in the flesh and not in the power of the Holy Spirit, there are often outbursts of anger, fights in the streets and people being rude and unkind to one another.

Pray for a revelation that this kind of fasting is not acceptable to the Lord. Rather He accepts faith which leads to good deeds coming from a transformed life in the power of the Spirit. Pray that as Muslims fast this Ramadan and they see increased fighting and quarreling, they would realize that “all our righteous acts are like filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). Pray that they would come to know that only faith in Jesus can give them right standing with God. Pray that as Muslims eagerly await the signal for the eating or sleeping to begin, the Believers in this land would eagerly anticipate the trumpet sound announcing the arrival of our true King a second time, and that this would fill them with urgency to share their Hope with those around them, even in this month of increased relational tensions.

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.  

Isaiah 42:9-12 “Everything I prophesied has come true, and now I will prophesy again. I will tell you the future before it happens. Sing a new song to the Lord! Sing his praises from the ends of the earth! Sing, all you who sail the seas, all you who live in distant coastlands. Join in the chorus, you desert towns; let the villages of Kedar rejoice! Let the people of Sela sing for joy; shout praises from the mountaintops! Let the whole world glorify the Lord; let it sing his praise.”

Pray today for a saturation of praise to ring out throughout all of Morocco and that the shouts of the Lord’s praises would be a contagious movement.

PRAY THE SONG

God, you are a God of promise.  Every promise You have made, you will fulfill.  You do all things for our Good and for our benefit.  Give us radical trust in Your promises…

“Like You Promised” by Amber Brooks