The Right Path

Wow … 2008 has come. May it truly be a year of new beginnings.

I liked the following entry found in its entirety at http://donteatalone.blogspot.com/2007/12/thanks-and-yes.html (Don’t Eat Alone). Following are some bits and pieces:

>… As this year rolls into the next, however arbitrary our calendars might be, we don’t know what’s coming and so we have choices to make about how we prepare for the uncertainty. What jumped first to my mind is one of my favorite borrowed prayers, by Dag Hammarskjöld, the former Secretary General of the United Nations:

For all that has been, thanks; for all that will be, yes.

How we choose to embrace what lies ahead is, in large part, determined by how we find meaning in what has already come and gone. Thanks comes before Yes.

In one of my favorite movies – also an Oscar winner, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are looking off the cliff into the water below as their pursuers are gaining ground. Sundance hesitates:

Sundance: I can't swim!

Butch: (laughs) Are you crazy? The fall will probably kill you!


… The truth is the fall is going to kill us; we don’t get to hang out here forever. The truth is most of the stuff we think we have to have or do to make us matter isn’t going to be enough. Knowing that we’re going to die and come up short (not necessarily in that order), how can we choose to live in something other than a posture of fear and self-centeredness?

The answer for me is in saying, “Thanks.”Gratitude gives birth to courage and hope. Gratitude lifts my eyes up beyond my little life. Gratitude opens my heart to love.

The year ahead doesn’t promise to be any less harrowing or hopeless than the one we are completing. There is much in our world that is dangerous, difficult, and wrong. We are in desperate need of leaders who don’t appear to be stepping forward. We have set things in motion we don’t know how to control in many different arenas. And – and – none of that gets the last word.

For the harvests of the Spirit,thanks be to God.
For the good we all inherit,thanks be to God.
For the wonders that astound us,
for the truths that still confound us,
most of all that love has found us,
thanks be to God.<

As I lay in bed last night entering into this new year, I had no great promises to promise, no great prayers to pray, no great abilities to dedicate to God’s cause, no great aspirations that I had faith for the accomplishing of, and no great ambitions that I would follow through with. I could only offer myself to God, knowing it would take Him to bring value and use, passion and purpose, and vision and vitality to what was offered.

The Right Path (Psalm 1:1-3)

How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked,Nor stand in the path of sinners,Nor sit in the seat of scoffers! But his delight is in the law of the LORD,And in His law he meditates day and night. He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water,Which yields its fruit in its seasonAnd its leaf does not wither;And in whatever he does, he prospers.

… Lord, may I not pay heed to or walk in ungodly counsel, travel sinful paths, nor be counted among mockers and scoffers. May my delight be in Your Word and my mind and heart captivated by it. May I be as a tree firmly planted by streams of water, yielding fruit for the weary and may I prosper in all I do as I journey on the right path with You. Thank You that blessings will follow me as I follow You …

Blessed is the man who takes his counsel from God’s Word
He will neither stand in the path of the sinner nor sit in the seat of the scoffer.
He will stand on the righteous path, walking in its way.
His delight will be in God and His Word,
And will be ever drinking from the wells of salvation.
He will release fruit to the weary and be marked by God’s presence.

May you be blessed and prosper in all you do as you follow God in 2008.