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READ Luke 13:34 (NRSV)
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!

DEVO
The Prayer of the Heart is the prayer of intimacy. It is the prayer of love and tenderness of a child to Father God. Like a mother hen, who gathers her chicks under her wingds, we, through the Prayer of the Heart, allow God to gather us to himself, to hold us, to coddle us to love us.

Richard Foster tells a story of visiting a local church and his request to God, prior to the start of the service; “What, Lord, do you have for this congregation this morning? God’s response was quite specific: “Tell them that I want to warm their hearts.” God did act upon his request. Foster, later thought to relay this story to underscore the longing God has to commune with each of us, Heart to heart.

It is to the voice of the heart that God listens and it is the heart that he answers.” In this prayer of the heart we experience “friendship and love..; To some degree we are being directed by the Spirit into the profound intimacy with God. (adapted from: Prayer, Finding the Heart's True Home).

PRAY
Lord, help me to grow in prayer and practicing the presence of God in my ordinary, daily routines of work, family, friends, and recreation.