Today's Meditation
Read Psalm 121
1I lift up my eyes to the hills— from where will my help come?
2My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
3He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.
4He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.
5The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade at your right hand.
6The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.
7The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.
8The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore.
I have a confession to make. It's difficult for me to rely on God; to "lift up my eyes to the hills..." and find "my help comes from the Lord." It's much easier for me to rely on myself, to work on my skills and my abilities, to hone my gifts and to rely on them. It's much easier for me to ask others for help, if I find my own skills lacking. For much of my life I have tended to "go to God" when those other two things fail, when God is my last resort for help.
Over the years, I have sought God more regularly and have had a much richer prayer life and relationship with God because I do "go to God" more readily. But, my earlier inability to do this and my natural inclination for relying on myself was laid bare in this pandemic and showed a huge weakness in my approach to life.
I always have a plan. It might not always be the right or best plan, but I ALWAYS have a plan. I don't like sitting still. I don't like "being in limbo". I have to be moving and sometimes I actually move forward - yay! But, quite honestly, I'm often just moving sideways and even sometimes, taking two steps back. But, I'm moving because...I've got a plan.
When this pandemic first hit, I formulated a plan. And executed it. But as the weeks wore on and my extroverted self couldn't get my energy back from being with others, I retreated more and more into a world I don't often inhabit - the interior of my soul. I found out that there was a lot of work that had been neglected for a long time. I'm coming out of these months a very different person than when we began. And I'm not sure exactly who this new person is. It might be that the interior soul has been renewed, refreshed, and reshaped, but that my exterior manifestation of that being is exactly the same. Honestly, I don't know yet.
It helps to know that God watches over us - that the Lord never slumbers nor sleeps, keeping us safe. I hope that you've had an opportunity over the last few months to rely more on God, to see life with new eyes and a new perspective. I pray that God has blessed you in ways that you never imagined possible and that you've remained safe.
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