Prayer For Help In Getting Back On Track
Friday August 14, 2020
GETTING BACK ON TRACK
Few people are more aware of their need for God’s help to restore them to sanity than recovering addicts or those who find themselves incarcerated. When I checked my mail the other night I found a fistful of letters from folks who are currently in prison. They are writing to us because they are receiving copies of our daily meditation booklets from their chaplain.
Over and over again the story is repeated of how things have gone wrong and stayed wrong for a long enough time that precious relationships and even a sense of personal identity have been lost. Now, as they are coming to know who God says they are – as we spoke about yesterday – they are finding hope and tentatively setting out on a new path, together with God.
It doesn’t take incarceration or waking up to the reality that we are an alcoholic or drug addict who’s let chaos and destruction rule the day for too long to know how unmanageable life can be and how powerless we are to stop the suffering and chaos. We need someone to help restore us to some semblance of a liveable life.
The truth is that without God life for all of us quickly degenerates into problems and pressure and stress. We just can’t juggle everything we need to in order to make all the pieces of life fit together and run smoothly. Maybe we manage for a day, a week, or a month, but one of the valuable lessons I hope we capture from this time of the pandemic, is that we can’t sustain goodness and lifegiving habits that care for God, others, and ourselves adequately on our own. Too many things smash into us and leave us reeling.
What a relief it was to turn to God who was ready, willing, and able to do life with us – because that in fact is how He created life to work and what His loving plan all along has been for us. He’s ready and willing to get us back on track with what matters today.
The Bible tells us:
You are his chosen people, the King’s priests.
You are a holy nation, people who belong to God.
He chose you to tell about the wonderful things
he has done. He brought you out of the darkness
of sin into his wonderful light.
1 Peter 2:9
So today, God, we come to You with faith that we are who You say we are and life works how You say it works. We are chosen by You, cleaned up and made pure and holy by receiving the forgiveness for our sin that Jesus’ death on the cross won for us. You’ve chosen us to do wonderful things as we walk in the light with You today.
It is impossible to please God without faith.
Anyone who wants to come to him must believe
that God exists and that he rewards those
who sincerely seek him.
Hebrews 11:6
The chaos of these times don’t define and control us. You’ve promised that if we simply come to You in faith – faith that You exist, faith that things spinning completely out of control, that You are in control and that our lives are in Your hands, - that You will help us navigate through what’s going on and even reward us.
Most days it’s too easy to be distracted by the noise and chaos around us but today we want to do things differently. We want to take time to let You inform us – whether we read something in print or listen to something on an app or a podcast.
We want to keep the agenda simple and focused on the way You’ve told us to focus. I’m reminded of that simple sentence many of us have heard for a long time:
He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
Micah 6:8
Write that on our heart today, God. Help us to come back to that over and over again today and filter out everything that goes against that. Steady us in Your loving presence and Your simple and clear priority for us. You’ll show us how particular work and interaction fits in if we will just do our part.
We just choose today to remember that at the heart of all our practices is faith: faith in You God - that You are good, that You have a clear and do-able direction for our lives that You are willing to show us. Help us to trust Your presence with us, Your power to change us, and Your wisdom to guide us. Amen
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