Years ago I learned that if I am in regular daily Bible study God will speak through His Word directly into my life. It’s such a powerful experience. I can’t imagine why I would stray from this discipline knowing that this is how He reaches me. But over and over in my life I have decided that other things were more important — sleep, work, reading novels, time with family, games on my phone. It’s embarrassing, actually, to admit they I can so easily be distracted. But I can.
So, after waking this morning, drinking two tablespoons of organic olive oil mixed with the juice of one organic lemon, doing the prescribed twenty minutes of Pilates, drinking the juice of the other half of the lemon mixed with hot water, downing the shake mix stuff blended with water and a banana, taking probiotics, vitamins, and my regular medications, drinking one cup of green tea with 56 grams of caffeine (yay!!), chopping tons of vegetables and making vegetable broth, cooking short grain brown rice according to specifications, washing all the dishes, adding to my compost pile, showering, and dressing, I sat down to do my Bible study.
I read Psalm 25, the reading for the day, To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul. O my God, in you I trust…Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths…He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble His way. All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness…
Then I read the accompanying study in the book I am using at the moment, Whispers of Hope: 10 Weeks of Devotional Prayer. The whole devotion was meaningful, but the last portion is what got me: “We encounter God’s challenge as He demands: Will you allow Me to dramatically alter your ways to teach you My own?”
Well, yeah. I think You stepped right in and altered them without waiting for me to hem and haw and reply. You moved me to a different state, took me out of my job, and gave me a much smaller, more manageable home. You provided a new, slower lifestyle, opportunity to evaluate and reflect, and new friends to join me on my journey. You hit the reset button on my life! And now, this week, You are challenging me to look at my health in a different way, to take some chances, to be obedient to a regimen. It’s a little uncomfortable, a little scary. It’s a dramatic alteration, after many other dramatic alterations.
So I am going to allow You? We’ve been over this: You are God, I am not. Show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths.
“for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long.”
Psalm 25: 5
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