Welcome to Young Life’s Day of Prayer!
The digital resources for today are created and offered by the Day of Prayer Team: Jeff Chesemore, Donna Hatasaki, Holly Pettit, Matt Walker, and Jessica Williams.
We hope the solitude guide and the guide for teams help you connect with the Lord and one another in meaningful ways throughout this day.
Solitude Guide
Today is filled with invitations. Young Life’s senior leadership is inviting us to set aside this day for the sole purpose of prayer. Later we’re invited to pray together in teams and intercede on behalf of kids, leaders, and the needs of this mission. We begin the day, however, by leaning in to this personal invitation from Jesus:
“Come with me to a quiet place and get some rest” (Mark 6:31).
It’s an invitation he gave his disciples after they returned excited, tired, and hungry from their first “missions trip.” Today, he’s asking you to do the same, so slowly read his words again. Hear them filled with the Lord’s kindness, compassion, and deep desire to be with you, ready to restore and refresh your soul.
Transitioning into solitude takes intention, time, and effort. Without judging yourself, notice what this feels like for you today. Be encouraged. The Lord’s not troubled when your mind wanders. He understands how you’re wired. He’s aware of all the forces working against you as you seek to connect more deeply with him, yet he’s not discouraged. He’s delighted. His heart leaps each time you pause and turn your attention toward him, if even for a moment.
As you continue to settle, turn your attention again to Jesus’ invitation.
“Come away with me to a quiet place and get some rest.”
Pause and Reflect
What rises up within you as you hear the Savior’s invitation?
Notice Jesus did not say in Mark 6:31, “Go away by yourself and make some plans.” Instead, he used phrases like “with me” and “rest.” What do we learn about Jesus from these words?
What do you need from the Lord during this time of solitude today? Here is a simple prompt that might help.
Lord, I need …
Selah.
(Note: Selah is a word we find repeatedly in Psalms that creates a holy pause. When you see Selah throughout this guide, we invite you to pause and listen before you proceed.)
God With Us: In the Beginning
It’s telling that Jesus said, “Come with me” and not “Go away by yourself.” This desire to keep company with us has been God’s deep longing since the very beginning. We first hear him express this desire in Genesis 1:26.
“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness …’”
Consider the words “us” and “our” in this expression. (God in Genesis 1 is the Hebrew word Elohim, which is plural). Apparently, God’s desire was declared in a chorus, not as a solo. Today we recognize this chorus as the harmony of three voices: The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Imagine the surge of love rising with their voices as their desire was made manifest in bones and skin; muscles and teeth; curls and corpuscles; taste buds and tear ducts. God’s desire became God’s Word, and God’s Word became flesh. We read:
“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27).
Think of it this way. The three Persons of the Trinity lived in perfect love with one another, and so abounded in this harmonious love that they wanted to share it; so they undertook the work of creation, prepared a place just for us, and invited us into their loving family relationship. We are image bearers invited into this safe circle of the “First Family” to share in their generous, self-giving, unending flow of love. This is life as it was intended to be lived. Some have called it the “with-God life.”
“… and it was very good” (Genesis 1:31).
Perhaps you’ve heard the creation account for so long it fails to move you as it once did. Or perhaps you’ve proclaimed it for so long, it has become good news for others, but background noise for you. Maybe it’s time to pause and let the stunning truth of the account catch up with you for a moment.
Pause and Reflect
Think of a time when you couldn’t wait to be with someone, maybe a family member or a friend. Recall the anticipation of connecting with them — not via text, phone call, or video chat — but in person. Now consider the depth of the longing God’s had for you since before you were born. Ask God for the grace to feel what he was feeling when he declared his desire for your company before all of creation.
Selah.
We were created for a with-God life. The first man and woman have this in Eden, where heaven and earth meet, a perfect place with a perfect relationship with God and each other. A place that’s never known sin — or everything that accompanies it — hurt, shame, blame, separation, tears, death. Can you even picture life free of these curses?
Yet we soon find the first man and woman separating themselves from God and hiding. What went wrong? An enemy suggested God was not good and could not be trusted (Genesis 3:1-4). He suggested the man and woman had been invited into a family circle that was not safe but suspicious. God was not generous but greedy. He was not loving; he was withholding good things.
The man and woman swallowed the enemy’s suggestions whole, and the consequences are still devastating us today. If what the enemy suggested was true, then we’re the image bearers of a not-good God, and there’s nothing left to do but hide; nothing left to feel but shame.
Think about this tragic moment in the garden. Place yourself there. Suddenly the sting of shame permeates your whole body, and you have the impulse to cover what God has made — your bones, skin, curls, corpuscles — everything feels cursed. You grab leaves and begin covering all of who you are in the only way you know how.
Then your ears perk up to a familiar sound. The God who created you is walking in the garden in the cool of the day, wanting to keep company with you in paradise. Suddenly you encounter another emotion you’ve never felt before: fear. You’re terrified of the One whom moments ago was your source of life, love, and connection.
What happens next in this unfolding drama will determine if what the enemy suggested about God was true. How will God handle the mess his children have made?
Does he subject them to more shame?
Does he recite a long list of his disappointments and punish them in anger?
Does he simply walk away in disgust and distance himself from them forever?
Or does his desire to be with them win the day?
Does he come looking for them in love?
Does he meet them where they are and cover them with something warmer and softer than scratchy leaves?
Does he assure them he already has a plan for repairing this rupture and restoring what’s been stolen?
Pause and Reflect
Can you recall a time when you felt the “sting of shame”? What caused the feeling, and what did you do next?
When we become aware of our hidden places of shame, we often discover a lie buried in the stinging. The pain keeps us from getting close to the lie and dispelling it with God’s light.
If you can identify an experience of shame in your life, ask the Lord to illuminate any lie embedded within it. Ask for the grace to open yourself to his healing presence. What would it look like for him to meet you where you are, dispel the lie, and cover you with his love and warmth?
Selah.
God With Us: In the Flesh
This First Family we’ve been invited into was not caught off guard by the tragic events in the garden nor any of the heartbreaking events that have unfolded since. They were not surprised nor shocked by the many choices we’ve made to distrust our Creator, distrust one another, and hide in fear and shame.
That’s because the Father, Son, and Spirit had long before stood at the crossroads and looked ahead to all that was to come if they created the man and woman. They thoroughly and carefully counted the cost, and then looked at one another, sober and yet full of joy. Then, compelled by their deep desire to be with us and confident the story would ultimately end well, they said, Let’s do this. Let us make man in our image.
Fast forward some 76 generations after the events in Genesis, and we see God with us in a new way in the Gospel of John’s prologue.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning” (John 1:1-2).
“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
“No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known” (John 1:18, NIV 1984).
In reading verses 1-2, we hear the echo of the first four words of the Old Testament: “In the beginning, God ...
John adopts the first three words of Genesis 1 as the intro to his own Gospel. This is not a coincidence; John is boldly reminding us of sound theology: everything begins with God. He has, and always will be, the main character of the story.
Not us.
John then reminds us of God’s heart. His desire to be with us has not changed. God’s longing to be with us once again becomes God’s Word, but this time with a capital W. But what will this version of God’s Word be like? John tells us in verse 14, perhaps the most loaded verse in the entire prologue:
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us …”
Other versions have said it this way:
“The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood” (The Message).
“Creator’s Word became a flesh-and-blood human being and pitched his sacred tent among us, living as one of us” (First Nations Version).
The Son of God left the comforts of heaven, and became bones and skin; muscles and teeth; corpuscles and curls; taste buds and tear ducts. Jesus is born, and in case there is any doubt about God’s desire, he moves into the neighborhood and introduces himself as Immanuel, God With Us.
It’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen from God — including the garden. Where we’ve been made in his likeness, Jesus has been made in ours!
In this holy moment, heaven and earth now meet in him.
Jesus, the Word, will speak through his humble life and sacrificial death, becoming a window into who God is, what he’s like, and how much he loves us. His with-ness will be his witness. This is why John ends his prologue with this:
“No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known” (1:18).
And by knowing the Father better, we can also know others and ourselves better. Consider the words of “O Holy Night,” a hymn we sing every year around the time we celebrate the Son’s coming:
O holy night!
The stars are brightly shining.
It is the night of the dear Savior’s birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.
Worth simply means something’s value or importance. In a financial sense, it’s what someone’s willing to pay for it.
Consider what you’re worth. You are of infinite value to your loving Creator because he willingly paid for you with his own Son. In a way, you’re doubly his — he’s made you, and he’s bought you back.
This is how much he wants to be with you, and why Jesus — God “in the flesh” or God “incarnate” — came to be with us.
Pause and Reflect
As you consider this description of God incarnate, what words or phrases most resonate with you? What stirs faith, hope, or love within you?
Selah.
God With Us: In the Spirit
Of course, the Son of God’s mission was never to remain here on earth. So what do the followers of Jesus do when he’s no longer walking among them? Once again, the First Family had already planned for this from the beginning.
On the night before his crucifixion, Jesus explains to his disciples that it will be good for them when he goes away.
Imagine sitting at the table with Jesus, as he’s saying this. You’ve given up everything to follow him for the past three years. You’ve come to believe he is indeed the Son of God. You’ve grown to deeply love him and the other companions in the room. What could possibly be good about Jesus going away? Isn’t he the very incarnation of God’s desire to be with us? How, then, could he leave us and call it good?
“It is for your good that I am going away,” Jesus said. “For if I do not go, the Spirit will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:7).
When Jesus became a man he also accepted all the physical limitations of a man, meaning he’d only ever be in one place at one time. The Holy Spirit, however, would indwell all believers, speaking directly to them as he guides them into all truth, just as Jesus said he would.
And so God With Us gives us God In Us, and we gain the ability to experience the with-God life from the inside out. God’s deep desire to be with us has compelled him to live in us, empowering us to remain deeply connected in this safe circle of family, sharing in their flow of self-giving, unending love. “On that day,” Jesus said, “you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you” (John 14:20).
Heaven and earth, in a sense, now meet in our humble vessels!
Does the Spirit’s presence in our lives now mean the Father and the Son are more distant? Absolutely not! In fact, in Romans 8 the apostle Paul tells us what each member of the Trinity is actively doing right now on our behalf:
The Father is for us and working for our good (31, 28).
The Son is praying for us (34).
The Spirit is also praying for us (26).
Unfathomable — knowing all three members of the First Family are actively caring for us, and discussing what’s best for us! What, then, could we possibly have to fear?
As if all this wasn’t enough, the Spirit also ensures our future, promising us there’s far more ahead of us than behind us:
"...You were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory" (Ephesians 1:13-14).
So the Spirit is the guarantee of what we each long for in this fallen world. Revelation 21 and 22 beautifully bookend Genesis 1 and 2. In the Bible’s final two chapters, we’re told one day we’ll be in a place where there’s …
No more sin. No more hurt, shame, blame, separation, tears. No more death. It sounds a lot like another place God once created for us. The Spirit foreshadows a new home — literally, a new heaven and a new earth — prepared just for us.
And one day … one sweet and glorious day … we’ll no longer see “but a poor reflection” of the One who loves us most, but we will see him face to face. And we will be completely and unreservedly WITH HIM forever.
“And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God’” (Revelation 21:3).
In the meantime, God is closer to us than we are to ourselves. It’s not his Presence that’s lacking; it’s our awareness of his Presence within us that ebbs and flows. As we practice paying attention to his Presence, and surrendering ourselves more fully to the flow of his self-giving love, we increasingly experience the with-God life. And it is very good.
Pause and Reflect
Take a moment to acknowledge the presence of God within you. In the secret sanctuary of your soul, God is at home — at rest — and he invites you to enter into this rest with him.
Jesus said, “Come with me to a quiet place and get some rest.” Ask Jesus to lead you now into this quiet place in the deepest part of who you are. The with-God life is lived from the center of your soul, in the loving presence of the Father, Son, and Spirit who are always waiting to greet you with grace and peace.
Selah.
As you begin to transition out of this time of solitude, revisit what you shared with the Lord at the beginning: What do you need from him today?
Rephrase it now in this way: Who do you need him to be for you today?
Consider writing this as a prayer. Lord, I need you to be … OR Lord, thank you that you are …
Take a few more moments to let the First Family surround you and enfold you with their love. Thank God for what he’s given you in this time, and ask him for the grace to continue cherishing what he’s offered you throughout this day and the days to come.