QTVOTD: Looking Into Heaven in Worship and Prayer Can Be Powerful…

Today was a mixed bag. It started out with me needing to go into work for a bit. We had a late breaking software change that was going to be a good win if it worked but we needed to have the confidence we didn’t break something else before Monday. In order to keep from my team having to come in before a super busy week, I chose to go instead. It paid off and the Dev Team was able to fix a pretty nasty bug in the experience. Picture below is me in the empty building at work this morning.

But then I came home and released Marianne to get started on a bunch of work that had been piling up on her and I took the Littles. Bella is still not feeling well so she was in bed and Sophie was spending the whole day with a neighborhood friend. What we decided to do was both good for me and for the Littles. They came with me for a little ‘Twighlight Golfing’. We had a wonderful time and the girls really enjoyed the cart and looking for golf balls. The pace of play was pretty bad so we joined up with Mr. Steve who was really nice.

For there were about five thousand men.
 Then He said to His disciples, “Make them sit down in groups of fifty.”  And they did so, and made them all sit down.
 Then He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the multitude.  So they all ate and were filled, and twelve baskets of the leftover fragments were taken up by them. Luke 9:14-17 [NKJV]

The miracle of the feeding of 5000 is a little crazy. First, the Bible says that it was about 5000 men, but we are pretty confident that there were women and children with them…but let’s just stick with 5000 for a minute. Jesus tells the disciples to have all of the people to sit down in groups of 50…this is 100 groups! Just picture this in your mind’s eye, on a hillside with 100 groups of 50 people. Just the orchestration of making this group separation happen is pretty crazy.

The other thing that stood out to me was that Jesus looked up into Heaven. I used to kind of get on myself for looking up into heaven during worship or even when I pray sometimes. The reason for getting on myself is because God is right in my heart with me; the Holy Spirit dwells within me. I don’t need to look up to Heaven because He is right here. But seeing Jesus do this helps me to see that prayer and worship can also be focused on the Trinity. The Holy Spirit lives within me here on earth, but we together can petition, serve, and address God the Father and Jesus the Son in Heaven. There is something quite powerful about this if you keep it within that context.

Application:

First off, the feeding of the five thousand is a continuation of yesterday’s points about Jesus’ caring heart and tenderness He shows us. Second, Praying and Worshiping while looking up to Heaven is a powerful acknowledgement of the situation of our earthly state with the Holy Spirit; and the Father and Son being in Heaven. The Holy Spirit intercedes on our behalf and the Son represents our needs/situation to the Father. Then through the Holy Spirit, God sends us comfort, peace, wisdom, knowledge, and strength. So, gazing up into Heaven during worship and prayer is 100% appropriate in my book.

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