READING:
One-year plan: Genesis 24-26
Two-year plan: 2 Chronicles 29:12-30:27, Acts 8:14-40
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When I read stories in the Scripture of God answering prayer, I wonder sometimes why I don’t pray with even more faith. Today’s reading includes one of those stories: God’s bringing together Isaac and Rebekah.
Look, in fact, at the way God pointed out Rebekah for her husband-to-be. Abraham sent his servant to find a mate for his son, and he knew God would provide: “The Lord, the God of heaven, . . . he will send his angel before you, and you can take a wife for my son from there” (Gen 24:7). Abraham’s servant rightly prayed for wisdom in seeking that mate, asking God to make that choice clear. It is, then, this verse that causes me to express gratitude to God today: “Before he had finished speaking, there was Rebekah—daughter of Bethuel son of Milcah, the wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor—coming with a jug on her shoulder” (Gen 24:15). Before the servant had finished talking, God was already responding (see also Gen 24:42, 45).
Isaac, too, prayed. He sought God’s help when his wife Rebekah was childless, and “the Lord was receptive to his prayer, and his wife Rebekah conceived” (Gen 25:21). Later, when he arrived at Beersheba, he “called on the name of the Lord” after he had built an altar there (Gen 26:25). Prayer, to Isaac, was more than a religious ritual; it was a relationship with a God who answers prayer even before we finish the sentence.
PERSONAL REFLECTION: Is prayer part of your relationship with God, or is it more ritual?
DAILY PRAYER: “God, move my heart to want to speak to You.”
TOMORROW’S READINGS:
One-year plan: Genesis 27:1-29:30
Two-year plan: 2 Chronicles 31-32, Acts 9:1-9
MEMORIZATION VERSE (JAN 1-15):
“A son was born to Seth also, and he named him Enosh. At that time people began to call on the name of the Lord.” (Gen 4:26)
