Day 6

Today's Scripture is suitable to use with Imaginative Contemplation.

Stilling: Come into the presence of God and still yourself

Grace: That we might recognise the presence of the Risen Lord in this challenging time.

Suggestions for Prayer: Either imagine yourself on the Gaza road, as the Ethiopian official, Philip or a servant. See this story from their point of view.

Or take time with the picture, notice what draws you?

Or you might like to ask God to bring to mind the chance encounters, surprises, unexpected insights in your own life. Talk to God about these times and events, notice how you feel about them now and if God is inviting you to draw any new grace from them.

Acts 8:26-40 HCSB

The Conversion of the Ethiopian Official

An angel of the Lord spoke to Philip:

“Get up and go south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.”

This is the desert road. So he got up and went.

There was an Ethiopian man, a eunuch and high official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to worship in Jerusalem and was sitting in his chariot on his way home, reading the prophet Isaiah aloud. The Spirit told Philip, “Go and join that chariot.”

When Philip ran up to it, he heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, “Do you understand what you’re reading?” “How can I,” he said, “unless someone guides me?”

So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

Now the Scripture passage he was reading was this:

He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb is silent before its shearer, so He does not open His mouth. In His humiliation justice was denied Him. Who will describe His generation? For His life is taken from the earth.

The eunuch replied to Philip, “I ask you, who is the prophet saying this about—himself or another person?”

So Philip proceeded to tell him the good news about Jesus, beginning from that Scripture.

As they were traveling down the road, they came to some water. The eunuch said, “Look, there’s water! What would keep me from being baptised?” And Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart you may.”

And he replied, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”

Then he ordered the chariot to stop, and both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptised him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him any longer.

But he went on his way rejoicing.

Conversation: Have a talk with Jesus about what has struck you during this meditation.

Finish with a final prayer such as the Lord's Prayer/Our Father

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