Psalm 86:11 -13 11 Teach me your way, Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name. 12 I will praise you, Lord my God, with all my heart; I will glorify your name forever. 13 For great is your love toward me; you have delivered me from the depths, from the realm of the dead.
Teach me Your way, Lord. Yes please, today, tomorrow and every day. Because see I’ve tried it my way and for some odd reason there are times when things turn out just fine but most of the time especially big things – doing it MY way does not turn out well at all. I find myself reversing and starting over. Beginning again and starting with a prayer, asking You in the situation and then trying to step back and get myself out of the way.
Let me give you an example folks, long ago I was a Home-team leader. This means I facilitated a Bible Study group. My group of people ranged in age and gender, what we did for a living, etc. the one thing we all had in common was that we were single parents. I will tell you that being a single parent is one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life. Being singularly responsible for your child or children both in choices, life decisions, consequences – just all of it, without any help – I tell you it is hard. I don’t wish that on anyone. Now I have to stop here and say this as well, doing it alone as your child hits milestones and has major successes like graduating High School, then moving on and working part time and attending college and finishing. Those successes are all the more sweet when you have walked it out alone. When you can tangibly see the results of your battles and blessings. That was one thing about us being a group, we walked it out together, we had each other’s backs and I’ve made some of the best friends from that group.
Each time I prepared for group, I had a study book and usually a leaders guide and I studied it really in depth for the first week, answered the questions and thought about discussion and additional things to add. The second week on Friday was when we would have group. So first week was in depth prep, go look for additional scripture and make notes in my book to share. The second week was going over notes and making sure I had it down, I always tried to incorporate something visual too in hopes it aided the study and helped everyone remember the topic and scriptures. Visual aids were always favorites.
So by the time Friday night rolled around I had spent several hours in preparation to have a great meeting. I always wanted to do new and exciting things to keep it interesting and informational. Our purpose was to learn about faith and God and I wanted to make things stick so I tried to be fun and inspiring. Sometimes I hit the mark and others not so much. After many failed attempts, and let me tell you why. Because I would get there and someone would hijack the meeting, I did not or could not stop it. Someone would be in real need and want to talk and sideline my plan. In the beginning I would really get frustrated especially when I had what I thought was a great plan.
Once I got to the point where I understood better - Teach me your way, Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me an undivided heart – I quickly developed the attitude of first of all getting to the meeting at least 10 to 15 minutes early, to talk to the host and catch up, make sure the host was all good and didn’t need anything from me. Then I would get set up and take 5 minutes to just sit in the place and pray. My prayer usually went like this – Lord, this is Your home, this is Your people, this is your Bible Study – if my Plan A is what You want then please help me deliver plan A. If, on the other hand, You have a better plan B then please give me the discernment to understand that plan B is coming and to get out of my way and let it happen. Once I settled in to that routine then things went so much better.
Folks enjoyed the meetings more and it felt organic instead of ridged and structured. I can’t always say that we did Plan A the most or Plan B, it was a good mixture and I’m glad. That told me that God valued my plan A at times and knew it would hit the mark. That made me feel good about what I was doing. I also appreciated the times when Plan B was best because those out of the blue things at times ended up being very meaningful.
Having learned this through Bible Study when my daughter was planning her wedding it came in handy. She was as nervous as she could be because there were so many parts of her wedding that were DIY pieces. There was only so much time because we both worked, she also was in college and planning. At one point she got really upset that things were not further along. I told her about Plan A and Plan B. I told her to plan away and do all she could right up to the day of her wedding, then she had to promise me something. On her actual wedding day first thing when she woke up she had to pray – God I have done plan A all this time, now if you have a Plan B and that’s better just take over and let Plan B happen. Turns out she was very relaxed the day of the wedding. I was glad she just wanted to enjoy things and not hear about issues or anything. This made that day a truly special day for them both. Plan Wedding! Happily Ever After.
Dear Heavenly Father, Thank You for Plan B, for Your Way, Your Will. I am grateful for this life lesson. Lord I do want an undivided heart, show me that path always. Show us all that undivided heart and Your path that we may walk this life out the way You want us to do. I pray all things In Jesus name – Amen.
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