Meditations from Zion

Sometimes it simply comes down to this basic request of God: Teach me! Even the disciples, in all of their travels and time spent with Jesus, still didn’t get it and all they could say was, “teach us.” [Luke 11:1] But of course, in order to learn, I must be open to the information.

Teach me how to do Your will,
    for You are my God.
Allow Your good Spirit to guide me
    on level ground, to guide me along Your path. [Psalm 143:10, The Voice]

First of all, I must know and trust the teacher. In Psalm 143, David identifies clearly his relationship to the teacher for it is God alone who has the ability to teach was David needs in that moment. His life is at a cusp, a turning point and David must figure out what to do next. The only course to take is God’s way, but what is it? This is the eternal dilemma of most believers at one point in our walk or another.

Which way? Where next? What next?

And so, I must turn to God and ask for direction or even better (as translated in the voice), ask for instruction to determine God’s will (both this time and the next time and the time after that).

As part of this request, I am hoping for a little extra help in discerning the way. This time, I say, I really don’t know which way to turn, what to say, how to proceed. Guide me, Lord, and as your Spirit guides me from within, use this opportunity to teach me how you work both inside me and outside me.

So often, I find myself on an uphill climb and I sense it’s not the best way to tackle my issue, my understanding. I may even be making things more difficult than they need to be.

I need to stop striving so. I need to stop, right where I am and confess my “control freak” self has taken over the reigns again and I’ve managed to get myself back into a difficult state of affairs. I didn’t pay attention to the Spirit before I started out on this path. I didn’t even bother to “check in.”

Forgive me Lord. Like Sara of old who thought she had to help out prophecy and gave her handmaiden, Hagar, to Abraham that Hagar  might bear a child whose destiny would be to populate the earth. O Sarah, foolish bride, set a great nation in motion that may have never intended to be one.

Each of us set change in motion by our actions, our words, our decisions: sometimes for good and sometimes not.

I let go of the past. I trust in God’s future for me. Teach me about the now of my life.