Resolutions
This blog is in fact a resolution of sorts. This blog is my sharing my prayer journal with you for the first time since I started sharing the weekly Lectio Divina. Fittingly with new resolutions, this resolution goes back to New Year’s Day morning prayer…
I wake and join God in prayer, “What do You seek from me in this new year Lord?” A number of things rest on my heart. I feel the Father settle in for the ‘Year in Review.’ My Father wanted us to look back and see the foundational work He has been accomplishing that ready me for what lies ahead. He shows me the growth in my prayer life, most notably my recognition of taking things to Jesus more than taking them to others in complaint or angst. He shows me my growing love and dependence on Him in the sacraments of the Mass and Reconciliation and the fruit of greater peace in my day to day life. He shows me my ‘yes’ to returning to this blog and website, a vehicle of faith witness, time and again even when the enemy attacks time and again telling me that I am wasting my time. My heart fills with gratitude for these pearls from the Father, encouragements against the regular drone of the enemy. As a disciple of our Lord Jesus I can slip into old habits of life. Namely, I can desire to just know what my life is going to look like. I want to be given my mission plan and I of course assume that my mission plan is ‘out there’ somewhere. This morning I feel a God calling me to a different step of faith. I feel this call to my domestic church and the [theology of the home]. What if this year I faced my fear? What if I stop worrying about being needed or used outside the home in a formal capacity and instead fully entered into the ministry of the home? What if I wait for the step by step guidance of God’s plan instead of scrambling to hatch the 10 year vision of my own? What if I embrace that there may be times of boredom, but boredom is not the enemy, it is the catalyst of great creativity?
Three weeks later as I spend my nightly hour in sacred reading the Lord affirms our new year converstation. In John Burks’ book, Imagine the God of Heaven, one of the individuals who gives witness to their Near Death Experience shared the wisdom Jesus shared with him, “I won’t tell you your purpose. I’m going to return you, and your purpose will be revealed one moment at a time, because if I were to reveal your purpose in full, you would not be dependent upon me. You must trust me and continually seek my guidance.”
Lord, help us to embrace the gift of today. Help us to lean in to the whisper of direction that You provide when we seek to hear Your guidance. Speak Lord, your servant is listening.
