This is not a collection of devotional readings for your quiet time. It is not a seven-step guide to a more dynamic prayer life. It may function as those things, but they are not what this is.
What this is, is complicated. It is made complicated by the circumstances we find ourselves in:
United as a global community by a worldwide pandemic, a virus that infects at an exponential rate.
Fragmented to our most irreducible states, as the virus pushes us into isolation in our households, for our own safety and that of our neighbors.
We are simultaneously confronted by our essential community and exiled from it. This resource is a reminder of that.
But that is not all that this resource is.
This resource is also a reminder that accompanying every difficult circumstance, every calamity that befalls us and every crisis that besets us, is a God who loves us and invites us into hope.
That hope is not divorced from reality. If God is anything, he is a realist.
But neither is that hope paralyzed by reality. If God is anything, he is sovereign over and superior to even the worst that hits us in this world.
So then, what this resource is, is an invitation to a sevenfold prayer—one that begins with lament and ends with vision, one that faces reality with sobriety but which never loses sight of the promises God has made us, the assurance that God has graced us with, the trust that has been validated throughout the history of God’s people, the testimony that is our privilege to share, the commission that sends us out into the world with good news.
In this resource you’ll find passages from The Message Bible, a contemporary rendering of the text of Scripture that is known and loved for its resonant language and its fierce commitment to practicing a real faith in the real world. You’ll also find prayers written by several NavPress authors specifically for your use. You might take a day at a time to move through this resource. You might move through it in one sitting. You might return to it again and again when you find yourself in a moment of lament or in a moment where your vision is hard to recover. However you use it, know that it is born of a sense that prayer is our ultimate resource, reviving our connection to God and to one another, empowering us to act redemptively in the world even when we are confined to our homes. May your prayers be bold throughout this journey, and may you experience hope at every step.
– Your friends at NavPress
This is a beautifully designed prayer guide. But do you realize how much ink it requires to print the lovely cover picture?
Hi Sandra! We’re so glad you are enjoying the prayer guide. If you would like to utilize this as a printed resource, we recommend printing it starting at page 2. When you select print, you should have the option to select “Print pages __ – __”. That is where you can input 2-14 to print the full document, minus the cover page. I hope that helps!
It’s worth it. The costs can not equal the gains therein. God is the provider of everything: High cost and low cost.