Daily Reading: 6 September

(from www.christianaid.org.uk)

How do you imagine God to be?

Something to read

His lips are full of indignation, and his tongue is like a devouring fire.

- Isaiah 30:27, from full passage Isaiah 30: 27-33.

Something to think about

Isaiah doesn’t paint the most likeable image of God in the opening verse of this passage. For Isaiah in this part of his prophecy, God is almost too powerful for his own good, coming with vengeance and a devouring fire. Yet these words and this image of God may well have brought comfort to a people who were traumatised by exile and believed this fearsome God was on their side, advocating for their salvation in the face of the enemy.

The images we have of God affect how we relate to God and to the world. Perhaps you hold a particular image of God for different times and contexts. It is worth allowing those images to be inspired and challenged both by scripture and through prayer.

Something to do

In your prayer time today, reflect on how you imagine God to be. What bits of that image are of your own making, and which feel more like God’s true image? How might we best be bearers of God’s image in the world?

Something to pray

Lord, enable me to see you as you truly are – that I may see myself as I truly am.

Amen.

Today’s contributor is the Rev Jarel Robinson-Brown, a Methodist minister serving in the London District, Lesnes Abbey Circuit at the time of writing.