Guiding Text: Romans 12:1 MSG
 
So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you:
take your everyday, ordinary life
your sleeping, eating, going to work, and walking around life - 
and place it before God as an offering
Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him;
Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it 
without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out.
Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. 
Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity,
God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. 
 
Our focus for Day 1-3 of the fast is that of consecration. We are leaning into a posture of surrender -offering our minds, our bodies, our spirits to God. We are re-orienting our lives to Jesus, to His Invitation, to His Way.
 
Here is a Common Prayer we’d love for you to weave into the rhythms of your devotion and prayer over these few days taken from Psalm 91:1-5 vs.15,16:
 
We turn to you, surrendering our whole lives 
It’s in you that we find shelter 
our place of refuge in this storm
our place of rest when we are weary
 
Lord you are our strong tower and we choose to trust you
we turn toward your wisdom to avoid the traps that would cause us to stumble
we lean into your “shalom” when disease threatens to fill us with fear
 
You shelter us under your wings and we find safety there
Your faithfulness is unfailing and is our defense
 
We won’t be afraid of the night
Nor respond in fear to the challenges of the day
 
When we call on you, you answer us
You promise to be with us in our troubles
You sustain us and we are not ashamed
Throughout our entire lives you are enough for us, for you are our rescuer

Rest
Receive
Reorient
Ruminate
 
We will be gathering, weighing and collating what we sense the Spirit is speaking to us as a people throughout the fast, so we encourage you to send in those reflections and gleanings that you sense are from the Spirit to cathy@vineyard.ca
 
Looking forward to all God has for us as we set aside this time to seek Him.