The God Who Is Mindful of Us & Cares for Us

Jan 3

Tuesdays are important corporate days of Prayer and Fasting for the Kansas City Underground. To begin this new year of 2023, we invite you to step into a rhythm of focusing on a Psalm on the first Tuesday of each month. The chosen Psalm will be one that our sisters and brothers in Jesus’ global Church around the world are focusing on this week across ancient and fresh traditions and denominations. We want to join with them in anchoring in the Psalms because they “illuminate the mind for the purpose of rekindling the soul, indeed, to put it to fire; it may indeed be said that the purpose of the Psalms is to turn the soul into a sort of burning bush” (Stanley Jaki).

This week, we seek to encounter the igniting presence of God by focusing our prayer and fasting on the One who is mindful of us. Psalm 8 reminds us that God does care for us and has given each of us great purpose for this year. Our next step of faith is to embrace the wonder of what’s ahead with Emmanuel, the God who calls us into the holy wild of life with Him and walks with us each step of the way.

Focus: The God Who Is Mindful of Us & Cares for Us

Read: Psalm 8:1-2, New International Version (NIV) & The Message (MSG)

NIV: LORD, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth! You have set Your glory in the heavens. Through the praise of children and infants, You have established a stronghold against Your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.

MSG: God, brilliant Lord, Yours is a household name. Nursing infants gurgle choruses about You; toddlers shout the songs that drown out enemy talk, and silence atheist babble.

Reflect:

What of the Lord’s majesty and glory do you want to see more of in your specific spot on the earth in 2023? And how might you create space for the praise of children and infants to drown out any God-diminishing babble in your own mind and heart?

Pray:

Pause. Ask the Holy Spirit what it could look or be like for the Lord’s name to become majestic in your life. Your home. Your Microchurch or missional community. Your workplace. Pray into that holy imagination for God’s name to reign.

Read: Psalm 8:3-8 NIV and MSG

NIV: When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have set in place, what is mankind that You are mindful of them, human beings that You care for them?
You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. You made them rulers over the works of Your hands; you put everything under their feet: all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild, the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas.

MSG: I look up at … Your handmade sky-jewelry, moon and stars mounted in their settings. Then I … wonder, why do you bother with us? Why take a second look our way? Yet we’ve so narrowly missed being gods, bright with Eden’s dawn light. You put us in charge of Your handcrafted world, repeated to us Your Genesis-charge, made us stewards of sheep and cattle, even animals out in the wild, birds flying and fish swimming, whales singing in the ocean deeps.

Reflect:

God is mindful of you. God is looking your way, crowing you with glory and honor. He is inviting you to bring the reign of King Jesus to life in the wild of where you spend your days. What’s His charge to you right now?

Pray:

Ask God what corner of creation He wants you to bring forth the potential of in 2023. What comes to mind first? Do you see your apartment or house? Do you see your workplace or gym? Do you see the streets of your neighborhood or a driveway you pass each day? Hear the “Genesis-charge” again for how God has chosen you specifically to be like Jesus among these people in this place: mindful of them, caring for them, seeing them afresh.