Welcome to the Prayers of Rest podcast. I'm your host, Ashthira Chuchu, and I'll be leading you in prayer today using a simple guided format to help you slow down and hear God's voice.

As we begin, find a quiet place where you won't be interrupted and take a deep breath as we become aware of God's loving presence around us and within us.

Today's reading comes from Jesus' high priestly prayer in John 17, verses 20 to 21.

I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.

Let's begin by reciting God's goodness, praising Him for who He is as revealed in this passage.

Oh Jesus, how kind you are that you would pray for us. Before we knew you, before we were born, you were interceding before the Father on our behalf. God, we praise you, Jesus. We thank you for your loving

kindness. Thank you for your desire that we would be adopted into the

family of god that that we would be united together that we would be one even as you and the

father are one.

So in the next few moments, praise Jesus for His goodness in your life.

Praise Him for His prayers on your behalf.

Praise Him for the family that you have been adopted into.

That you might be a part of something greater than yourself. yourself. Let's continue now by expressing our neediness, confessing our need for God, for his forgiveness forgiveness as revealed in today's passage.

So God, we confess that we need you. We need this perspective shift from self-focused prayers and self-focused actions to value unity with other believers and

followers of Jesus as much as you do.

And so we join your prayer, Jesus.

We ask that you would make us one in a culture that just exacerbates division and extremes and algorithms that show that which divides us.

God, would you be the one who unites us?

Would you be the one who pulls us together because of what we have in common in Jesus?

I'll make that reality true in our local churches, in our families, in these expressions of the body of Christ all over the world.

God, would you make us one?

So in these next few moments, ask God to do that work in your heart, to start planting within you a desire to be one, just as Jesus prayed. Now let's move into a time of seeking his stillness.

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