Not My Words

[what's brewing: something from another pot]

One of the books that made its way into my bags nearly a year ago is a small prayer book that I found on the shelf in a used Christian bookshop I used to frequent. It’s the only prayer book I’ve ever owned, which I now know is a shame. There are times when my own thoughts cannot create the words I need to express myself before my Maker. I pray similar things in similar ways most of the time, and I find written prayers express familiar experiences and thoughts but in a new way that allows me to process them differently.

I don’t read it every day, but more often than not, when I open it up I find exactly what I need to hear. Today was one of those days. Fraught with anxieties about the future (distrust, as the prayer would lead me to see) and wondering if I will ever be confident of what God is calling me to do, this passage and prayer were waiting for me.

May you be encouraged by the truth reflected in these words as well.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are My ways higher than your ways,

and My thoughts than your thoughts.

Isaiah 55:6-13

Everlasting and ever-working God, who makest the acorn into the oak and enterest into the rib of the leaf, who lightest stars upon their way, and bringest forth the sun to lift up the heads of flowers, be near also to Thy servant and enable me to walk the whole path of this life – in joy and sorrow, in achievement and failure – without distrust, submissive to Thy will, and assured that, by reliance upon Thee, neither temptation nor mortal loss can overwhelm me, and that all things are secure finally in Thy care and keeping. Amen.