your ways

Opening Prayer: Show me your ways, O Lord, Teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.  (Psalm 25:4-5)

Scripture: Psalm 25:4-5

Journal: What is filling your mind and heart today?  What shift is necessary in you in order to focus on God’s ways rather than your own?

Reflection: There are no two ways about it; I am full of myself.  If I am completely honest I have to admit that most of my life is consumed with my circumstances, my plans, my agendas, and my wants and needs.  In fact, I am so full of myself most of the time that I have little room for God.  It is not an act of defiance, it is simply a matter of being so self-consumed that I am not generally mindful of him.  How can I be when I think about myself all of the time?

    That is why I find the words to this ancient prayer so helpful; they refocus me.  They remind me that this life is not, and never was intended to be, about me.  This life is about God; his ways, his paths, his truth, his will, his kingdom.  When I can begin to make the shift from me to him, I am well on my way to living the way God intended me to live.  And I am well on my way to being able to love the way that he intended for me to love.

Prayer

Closing Prayer: Help me, O God, not to be so full of myself, for when I am there is no room for you.  Remind me again today that this life is about your ways, your path, your truth, your will, not my own.  Amen.