Monday, January 8, 2018

"Essental Prayers: Help"

        I am a planner. I love to make lists upon lists both more my daily life and when I travel, hoping that the lists will help prevent any dangers that can arise out of uncertainty. So when I went with Drew and the Greater New Jersey Conference on a pilgrimage to Taize, the hardest part of the trip was relquinishing control to someone else – a leader who I didn’t even know. At one point this leader asked for our passports to keep in safe keeping – which I fought with every ounce of my being because it went against the basic travel rules I had been taught as a teenager. But more then that it was literally handing my ability to leave to someone else, essentially tethering me to him so I could leave France. While there are many beautiful things about Taize and I find something new from the experience being applied to my life post-pilgrimage every day, the biggest lesson I learned, the lesson I’m still wrestling with was about control. This is something I continually need to confess before God and ask for help with. 
Are we learning to trust God and each other more? Do those times when we cry out to God for "help" like my pilgrimage to Taize really shining a light on how independent we are and fearful to relinquish control to either others or God? Are we really looking for our help to come from the Lord or is this something that we can do on our own? 
       Let us find those dark and deep places in our lives where we need to ask God for help and hand them over to God's hands for redemption. 

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