DAY OF PRAYER be with me see my glory

JOHN 17 Dear George Fox Employee, Today is June 16, 2021--Day of Prayer. The purpose for this day is for us as the employee community to begin the 2021-2022 year prayerfully attentive to God’s direction and also to encourage the spiritual nourishment of the employee community in a season that has been especially stressful. The university pastors have created a prayer guide and a video (see code below) for you to use today, if you so desire, but please don’t feel limited by this. If there are other resources that God is using to refresh your soul or that are helping you to listen for God’s voice, by all means, utilize those tools instead.

In a day set aside for prayer, it can feel especially challenging to put down other work and silence electronics. We can feel a strong pull toward our email, task lists, and conversations with colleagues. And, in a year like this, with so many unknowns and with so much urgency, we can anticipate that these feelings will be present for many of us today. And yet, in an uncertain time, like the one we are in, it is of enormous importance to be attentive to God’s direction. God will lead us and guide us. God will give us ideas. God will direct our steps. We must prioritize prayer...especially in an uncertain time.

Prayer is not just talking to God, but listening and paying attention to God. It is easy to speak our prayer requests and then to continue in our hurriedness. On this day, we encourage you to cultivate a back and forth conversation with God, to say some things, and then quiet your mouth and your heart enough to be attentive to God.

God may speak directly to your soul in an unmistakable way, or God may speak through scripture, or through nature, or through something that unfolds during the day. On this day, be especially intentional about listening for God and cultivating a back-and-forth conversation. We hope that today will be a rich experience for you to enjoy the presence of God and to be nourished by God’s lovingkindness. DAY OF PRAYER VIDEO Grace and Peace to you, The University Pastors

VIMEO.COM/562997350 DAY OF PRAYER | 1 What am I supposed to do today? Many Christian universities observe a Day of Prayer at the beginning of the new fiscal year, academic year, or calendar year. As a Christ- centered university, we have the opportunity to intentionally seek God, remembering that we are stewards--caretakers of this place that belongs to God, seeking the Holy Spirit’s wisdom, and trusting God as we enter into a new year. June 16, 2021 has been designated by George Fox University to be a day dedicated to prayer.

Employees are encouraged to spend their usual work hours on Wednesday, June 16 in prayer and spiritual retreat University employees are welcome to enjoy their prayer retreat on-campus, off-campus, in their homes, or at an alternate site. The university pastors will provide an optional video which can be used at the beginning of an employee’s prayer retreat as well as this devotional to guide employees through the day of prayer.

During the Day of Prayer, employees are encouraged to: Have conversation with God about their work Pray for their colleagues, students, and the university Attend to their personal soul care--talking with God about their own lives of faith, experiencing the ministry of the Spirit

During the Day of Prayer, employees are discouraged from: Using this prayer retreat day for team meetings/in- services Doing other work (responding to emails, working on projects, meeting with people, etc.) Keeping their cell phones on/active Using the day as a vacation day. This is a soul care day, which may look a lot like a vacation day (a walk in the woods, journaling, reading, etc.) but should have an intentional spiritual formation focus and be directed by God.

DAY OF PRAYER | 2 JOHN 17 NIV

After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. 2 For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. 3 Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. 4 I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.

6 “I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. 7 Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. 8 For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. 9 I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. 11 I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.

13 “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. 14 I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. 15 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. 17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. 19 For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified. 20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

24 “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.

25 “Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. 26 I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”

DAY OF PRAYER | 3 M O R N I N G M E D I T A T I O N Mistaking J e s u s By Michael Simmons Graduate Admissions Counselor All new life begins with a separation from the life we’ve known. Collectively this last year we were separated and dislodged from the life we knew; ejected into unending revolution, splintering and disillusionment. What we knew vanished, and behold, nothing new had yet appeared. What do we do when our ways of connecting to God and others evaporate? What do we do when our prayers sound so tinny, God’s voice silent, our own soul flat? What do we do when life separates us from Life?

My answer this past year has been to walk. It’s all I have known to do at times. I have a two-and-half-mile loop down North Meridian Street, around Joan Austin Elementary and back. This route has been a labyrinth where I could hear the faintest inner whispers – soul connecting to Spirit. On my walks my mind loosens, my fear moves to sadness and loneliness melts to connection. One day, desperate to hear from God, I went for another walk. Before the next block, a dear friend drove up, opened the car door and said, “Get in!” We drove to Chapters and walked around Newberg for an hour. On my walk to find God, God began walking with me.

A few days after Jesus’ death, two disciples were walking, in shock and traumatized in the fallout of his brutal murder.

DAY OF PRAYER | 4 These disciples had nowhere to go, no one to console them, a funeral wasn’t an option and gathering together wasn’t safe.

Unknown to the two disciples, the transformed Christ joined them on their walk (Luke 24:16). It is easy to cynically scoff at these two disciples – if they had been truly faithful, they would have recognized Jesus immediately! Instead, they thought he was an out-of-towner, a stranger, even aloof. Earlier that day Mary Magdalene, a close disciple, mistook Jesus for a gardener (John 20: 14-15), and later the rest of the disciples thought he was a ghost (Mark 6:49). How could those so close to Jesus not recognize him? You see, a sign of deepening intimacy with Christ is often the inability to recognize him. We go through seasons where our image of God calcifies and the life drains out. Longing for friendship, God feels like a stranger; aching to be held, Christ becomes a ghost; thinking we found a familiar face, we discover it was just the gardener.

Where do you find Christ? What does he look like? Perhaps this is a season of intimate connection. Be there, enjoy it, receive all this season has to offer. Is Christ unrecognizable to you? Have you lost connection with yourself, your passion, your direction? Try not to cling to what was, yet avoid running away from the strangeness of this season. When we are separated from what we’ve known, we are offered an opportunity to transform and grow. If we can sit in that tension and allow it to do its work, something new will be born. Continue walking and something deeply familiar yet completely transformed will join you soon enough.

DAY OF PRAYER | 5 Spiritual Practice: Walking

The practice of walking represents movement of any kind. Often our minds are present, but our bodies are far from us. Making a conscious decision to invite our bodies into spiritual practice opens the door for Christ to incarnate into our reality once again. Before you pray or contemplate try stretching. Before journaling or singing, wake up your skin, bend your joints, and take big deep breaths.

Walking is also a metaphor for our daily rhythms, mishaps, monotony and adventures. Mystics such as Brother Lawrence called this practicing the presence of God. The presence of Christ is bursting at the seams of our lives, if we have the humility to receive Christ in ways we we’re expecting.

Ask yourself: What was the moment of greatest encouragement today? What was the moment of greatest discouragement/desolation/diminishment today?

DAY OF PRAYER | 6 NOTES

DAY OF PRAYER | 7 M I D D A Y M E D I T A T I O N The d e t o u r is the Road By Kelly Ward Associate Director of Marketing Content This year has felt like a detour, hasn’t it? As with all detours, whether in small ways or big ways, there’s a grieving required to move forward because the plans you placed hope in are no longer.

I know this all too well. But my sense is that you do too. This year has brought about loss for all of us. For me, I lost the joy of seeing my coworkers and closest friends every day, I lost the welcome comfort of church community on Sunday’s, and probably the most acute, I lost my marriage - a kind of grief I hope you never know.

If I can be really honest and invite you to do the same, sometimes this year has felt cruel. Does that feel uncomfortable for you to admit? Maybe it’s more comfortable for you to see that it’s been hard but there has to be a purpose beyond all of this. That’s beautiful. We need that perspective.

But can I gently suggest we’re often good at attaching the beautiful truths of God too soon in moments where God is inviting us to sit in grief with him? Maybe you’ve felt that before. A friend who tells you that God is making all things for good when all you want to do is sit with that friend in sadness.

DAY OF PRAYER | 8 It doesn’t mean that God isn’t doing a good work, but his Spirit hasn’t done the work only he can do in you so that he can bring you into the assuredness of that truth. It’s too soon. You need to grieve with him first.

This year I often clung to Phillippians 3 v 8-10. It was the salve to my soul which had no words to speak.

“For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings.”

Knowing the fellowship of his sufferings has profoundly changed me. What a bitter, painful, honoring pill to swallow. In the same year where I lost everything, I also gained the whole world in Jesus. It’s taken me an entire year to realize that the detour is the road God is leading me on.

I wonder if he’s inviting you to the same realization? Not to say he intended for my pain or your pain. Never - that’s not His character. But in a year that has felt like a sharp veer from our best laid plans, God is inviting us to pave a new path with Him that is more beautiful than imagined. It feels trite until you contain enough pain that you need it to be true.

DAY OF PRAYER | 9 So how do we become a people who embrace the detour well with God? Where do you begin when you don’t even have words? I adopted a practice I learned from Ruth Haley Barton’s book Sacred Rhythms that prompted me to move from a place of frenetic talking at God into a quieter posture of with-ness in him. Maybe you can start here too.

Prayer Practice (inspired from Sacred Rhythms): Find a quiet place that feels like peace for you. Maybe you bring a journal and a pen or maybe you just sit with palms open as a posture of surrender to God.

Once you’ve found your place, imagine God calling you by name. Isn’t it incredible to be known by him in that way? Imagine he asks you, “What do you want?” Try your very best to identify your innermost desire to bring to his feet. If you need help identifying it, ask him.

Now reverse the practice. Call upon the name of God and ask him, “What do you want?”

As you listen, it’s okay if it feels like a wrestle that leads to surrender. Maybe you don’t arrive at the surrender part yet. Maybe for today, it’s just the wrestle. That’s okay. If we learn anything from observing the life of Jesus, it’s that it was one full of wrestle and full of surrender. Our invitation as followers of Jesus is to practice both - wrestle and surrender, wrestle and surrender. All the while, as we get it wrong more than we get it right, we turn to the cross for hope.

DAY OF PRAYER | 10 NOTES

DAY OF PRAYER | 11 E V E N I N G M E D I T A T I O N Embracing God's p e r f e c t love By Guadalupe García McCall Assistant Professor of English

Scripture for Evening Meditation

1 John 4:16-18a, NIV

16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear

When I think of the many things that happened to us this past year, how much we had to trust and rely on God as we sat across from each other in class wearing masks, disinfecting our hands, stepping away from each other, holding back, I think of God’s perfect love. The season of physical and emotional distance and loss we are working to put behind us reminded me that even though we cannot see or touch God’s perfect love, we can feel it living inside us. The Holy Spirit attests to it when he stirs us to move past our discomfort, past our fear, to love and nurture our neighbor, comfort and help the needy, and acknowledge and welcome the stranger as Jesus ordained in Mark 12:31.

DAY OF PRAYER | 12 Every evening as I pray, I take time to reflect on God’s perfect love in my life. I reflect on both the painful and the difficult and ask the Lord to give me courage and wisdom and strength to understand his work in the day’s experiences. Like most people, I find it easy to thank God for the good things, the compassion extended to us by our George Fox colleagues and friends, the good class meetings, the joyful learning experiences, the excellent conversations that shed light on the blessings of our lives on and off campus. However, I also take time to meditate and reflect on the hard moments. I take great care to thank our Lord for the difficulties of the day as they shed light on our journey, reminding us to stay on the path, to be stewards of God’s perfect love as we live out His plans to prosper us, to give us hope and a future as promised in Jeremiah 29-11.

I reflect on God’s perfect love because that is what this past year has done for me, reminded me that though we could not see each other’s smiles or hold each other’s hands in salutation, assistance, or prayer, we knew those smiles and helping hands were there. We knew that we cared about each other because God’s perfect love lives and breathes inside us as we live and breathe outside ourselves.

DAY OF PRAYER | 13 How to reflect on God's Perfect Love: Put aside the things of the world and find a place where you can be alone for a few moments.

Read 1 John 4 and meditate on your life by asking yourself some questions: How did you reflect God’s perfect love to your neighbor today? How did you assist that soul who sought your attention and asked for your assistance? How did you glorify God by opening your heart to all his children, including and especially those whom you do not recognize or understand?

Application: An activity to help you engage in this spiritual practice. Start a spiritual diary. Write about God’s perfect love as you experience it every day. Do not be afraid but rather remain honest and faithful to yourself and to Him.

DAY OF PRAYER | 14