Day 34 – Six

It’s interesting that today’s prayer or a version of it—”Grant me, once again, assurance of Your presence and love”—appears a total of six times in “May It Be So: Forty Days with the Lord’s Prayer” by Justin McRoberts & Scott Erickson. Six of the forty prayers or 15% of our journey (6/40 = 3/20; 3 x 5 = 15) is spent asking God to help us know He is present and that He loves us.

First, in Prayer 5, we ask God to “Grant me assurance of Your presence and love” as we meditate on a visual of: Bread, a Cup, and Stairs—the Last Supper. Then, in Prayers 11, 17, 23, 29, and, finally, today’s Prayer 34 we repeat this request, adding the phrase “once again” by praying: “Grant me, once again, assurance of Your presence and love.” The accompanying visuals as well move us from the Last Supper [Prayer 5] through: Diamond/Stigmata Palms boxing in the Eye of Providence with their Index Fingers and Thumbs [Prayer 11]; a Shower of Grace [Prayer 17]; Two Fish and a Bread Loaf in a Triquetra [Prayer 23]; a Bisected Sheep bleeding out the World into a Goblet with a Crowned Flag [Prayer 29]; to the sixth image of an Outstretched Palm with Seeds feeding 5 Sparrows [Prayer 34]. If you’ve been able to follow along with the devotionals by reading the book, then you’ve been blessed with these pictures. (If not, then I hope my outline above can help you understand my thought process.)

It seems a double tax or a light breakfast tip of our time in these 40 Days is spent asking God to assure us of His presence and love. We ask to be spiritually fed and hydrated, because we are starving and thirsty for the Lord in this fallen world. In Prayers 5, 11, 17, 23, and 29—abstract pictures of the Last Supper, Christ’s Crucifixion, His Grace, the Feeding of the Multitudes, and Jesus’ Glorification in the Book of Revelation are provided to remind us of God’s continual presence and love in our lives. It’s beautiful then that Prayer 34’s, the sixth and final picture in the set, image is of an Outstretched Palm with Seeds feeding Five Sparrows. (Counting the palm and the five sparrows together, there are six figures in the image.) To me, this painting depicts the loving Hand of God feeding us, the sparrows or birds.

In the New Testament, our Messiah instructs us that if we had sufficient faith, or trust in Him—even as small as the size of a mustard seed—then we could cast out demons, move mountains, and tell trees to move from the land to the sea (Matthew 17:14-20 and Luke 17:5-6 ESV). Similarly, Jesus compares mustard seeds to the Kingdom of Heaven, or God: “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade” (Mark 4:30-32; see also Matthew 13:31-32 and Luke 13:18-19 ESV). On the theme of birds, our Lord tells us that “not one of them will fall to the ground” without God’s knowledge or “is forgotten before God” so it should not surprise us to learn that “even the hairs of [our] heads are all numbered” by God because we “are of more value than many sparrows” (Matthew 10:26-33 and Luke 12:4-7 ESV).

In a response to all our fears and worries, Jesus says in the Gospel of Luke: “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you. Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Luke 12:22-34; see also Matthew 6:25-34 ESV).

Finally, I want to point out the fascinating coincidence that a prayer for “assurance of [God’s] presence and love” occurs six times within “May It Be So’s” Forty Days. It may be unintentional on the part of the authors, but the number six holds a unique symbolic meaning. In six days, the World was created. In Jewish mysticism, six is associated with the Hebrew word “תִּפְאֶרֶת” or Beauty and linked to the Sun. Some New Testament scholars even believe that we wrongly interpret the infamous “666” found in Revelation.  Instead of being an evil number, some suggest its appearance is simply a Satanic attempt to steal a number belonging to the Son of Man, Jesus Christ. Moreover, in our current collective experience, Prayer 34, the sixth time we ask for assurance of God’s presence and love, occurs on Palm Sunday. From Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem to His death on Friday when the lambs were being slaughtered for Passover, God’s redemptive work was finished in six days. Is there anything more beautiful than His sacrifice for us? From the “Let There Be Light” of Genesis to Christ’s “It is Finished” on the Cross, we should develop faith, or trust in His presence and love, because Jesus Christ came to this World, died on a Cross for our Sins, and rose from the Grave on Sunday—conquering Death and heralding the end of the old Heavens and Earth for a new one is coming where there will be no need for a Temple—for the Earthly Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, or even a Sun, or a Moon, because “the glory of God gives (the New Jerusalem) light, and the Lamb is its lamp” (Revelation 21:23 ESV).