Praying For Humility See Where We Are “Set In Our Ways” And Seek God’s Way For Today

From the very beginning of this pandemic we have been encouraged to wash our hands often and well.  Some distillery companies redirected their plants to manufacture hand sanitizer rather than other spirits.  Being clean is important for our own health as well as for the health of others.

In Jesus’ day the religious leaders had all sorts of washing ceremonies they went through before they ate and performed other religious duties.  While there’s nothing wrong with the washing, Jesus challenged the fact that they decided what they needed to do to be clean before God rather than hearing and following what God had said. 

These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.  Mark 7:6-7

While we are all right to not want to live the kind of hypocritical lives these Pharisees lived, I think it’s important to ask ourselves in what ways we put our own ways of doing things ahead of seeking God for His plan in each of our days and circumstances.  It’s not about how much effort we put into what we are doing that counts.  It is about getting it right by accepting and following God’s way.  Look at these words.

I know what enthusiasm they have for God, but it is misdirected zeal. For they don’t understand God’s way of making people right with himself. Refusing to accept God’s way, they cling to their own way of getting right with God by trying to keep the law.   Romans 10:2-3

The classic example that comes to mind in this area is where Jesus asks His disciples “Who do You say that I am?” and Peter answers correctly but then in the very next breath is telling Jesus how the way forward Jesus has described can never happen to him.  We think we are so smart and our theology is so tidy.  God is wiser and His ways are way above ours.  We need to humbly seek His way in this day and pray for willingness and grace to actually lay down our own “set in our ways” practices for what God shows us.

Loving God, we so easily can rail on other people about this or that, that we are pretty sure is not the right way of doing things.  It’s too easy to see beyond our own lives and our own customs to the behaviours of others.  Lord, today we know that any work of change and cleansing needs to begin with ourselves. It’s not even that we belligerently go after our own ways often, but rather that we get so used to doing something in a particular way that we just don’t bother to check in with You about what Your plan for this day in this time is.  The longer that goes on the more set in our ways we get and the more we lock other people out.  Forgive us Lord.  Help us to recognize the diversity of Your plans and ideas that match what You and You alone know is going on in particular situations and people. 

What has been the right thing to do at one point in time may not be what You are directing us for today with what we are facing in our families, our church, or our community.  While we always want all of our actions to be in line with Your will as it is revealed in the Bible, we do pray that You will help us to be conscious and cleansed of our own spin on things.

As Your Word says:

How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!  Hebrews 9:14

And so God, along with Isaiah the prophet we commit ourselves to taking the time and effort to actually seek You out today and to call on You.  We pray for humility to forsake our own ways and thoughts and to be filled with a willingness and grace to turn to You. 

Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.  Isaiah 55:6-7

We agree with You that what You have in mind is much higher and wiser than our own thoughts and we need to have our thoughts changed today and raised to the way of life that You are showing us for today. 

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth,  so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.  Isaiah 55:8-9

Our simple desire, along with King David in the Bible is, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”  Psalm 51:10