Birth of John the Baptist

PRAYER PRACTICE

Spoken Prayer – Out loud, pray for God to speak to you through your reading. Praise God for giving us His word. Ask the Spirit to help you read with faith, and to live out what you hear from God through the passage.

DAILY READING

Luke 1:57-80

REFLECTION

He is Always Working

by Katie Borden

Something I find so incredible about God’s Spirit is how he brings the Scriptures to life, often highlighting a different facet of truth to us each time we come back to a passage.

As I pondered today’s reading, I was struck by the role the Spirit played in Zechariah’s life. I can’t help but notice that phrase in verse 67 right before Zechariah’s praise and prophecy: “Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit.” Zechariah doesn’t just will this song into being by his own fortitude. We are seeing evidence of the Holy Spirit at work.

But what about the months before this moment, the months Zechariah found himself without a voice, while he endured what I can only imagine was a painful silence? Where was God then? There is certainly nothing flashy about Zechariah’s inability to speak or Elizabeth’s wait for their child to be born.

Yet even then, I believe the Lord was working. Even before the evidence of his work is in plain sight, even before the birth of the fulfillment of his word, God is working. Zechariah’s song didn’t come out of nowhere. The child grew and was nurtured in Elizabeth’s womb, filled with the Holy Spirit, and then was born and named John as a fulfillment of the sign the angel had previously given to Zechariah (Luke 1:13-20). The Spirit then birthed praises from the mouth of Zechariah, bringing glory to God and proclamations of his goodness.

Perhaps you are finding yourself in a moment of your life where you are seeing how God is birthing fruit in you, and you cannot help but burst with praise. Give thanks to God for the ways he has made himself evident in your life. Shout it out! Sing it from the rooftops! Give testimony to what God has done. Thanks be to God!

But perhaps you find yourself in a season where it feels like you have nothing to show for your days. Perhaps it feels like in some way, God has brought a quiet over your life. Rest assured, the Spirit is working, even when you don’t see or feel evidence of that work. You can rest in his promises and assurance—rest in the hands of the God of mercy, peace, faithfulness, and redemption. Thanks be to God!

Holy Spirit, we thank you for how you are working in us and through us, even now, even today. You are good. Amen.