March 29 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

The dinner table has much rich significance in almost every culture, expressed in a vast myriad of ways. The uniqueness of coming around the table in Moroccan culture, like every culture, is beautiful. Families and friends gather around a round table so that everyone has easy reach to the common plate in the middle. There are no such things as separate dining rooms—in fact in most Moroccan homes the main living room is used for exactly that—living! It is a space where food is shared, time is passed in fellowship with one another, television is watched in copious amounts between meal prep and house chores, and where the majority of the family sleeps altogether once the lights go off at night. Unlike many Western cultures, there are no such thing as individual spaces or even individual plates or glasses. Instead, a Moroccan family knows the many joys and challenges of sharing space, as one’s place on the couch becomes one’s dining chair and then one’s bedroom.

This communal nature of family-life in Moroccan homes is both a blessing and a challenge for the Gospel. It means that the potential exists to see Acts-like stories of “whole families coming to faith,” gathering around that round table not just for the breaking of bread but for the sharing of the Word. But it also means that if this isn’t the way it happens—if instead one member of the family encounters Jesus before the rest of their family—the likelihood that this member loses everything in one fell swoop, is very high. When one member of a household comes to faith on their own, they are faced with the excruciating decision of being “excused” from the table, and thus losing their place to eat, sleep and fellowship with family, or hiding their newfound hope from the ones they love most.

It is for this reason we are asking for whole families to come to faith together. Ask that, as Moroccan families are used to sharing everything—plates, cups, beds, and blankets—that it would be second-nature for them to share their questions, doubts, dreams, wrestlings, and encounters with Jesus with one another. That families as a communal unit would take up the challenge to study the Word of God for themselves—as even Mohammed commanded they do!—and discover Him together. Pray for those who find themselves alone at the table—that they would hunger, and risk, to build new community with new “Family.” And pray for these tables, where so much life happens, that they would be places of honor, gratitude, and fellowship with Yahweh in the center of each Moroccan home.

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.  

Acts 2:39 “This promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off- for all whom the Lord our God will call.” 

Pray for the promise of salvation to ring out and be received across Morocco, completely transforming families and saturating future generations.

PRAY THE SONG

God, we pray a blessing over the people of Morocco…

“The Blessing” by Elevation Worship ft. Cody Carnes & Kari Jobe