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.