Elder Wisdom by Jo Beth

I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth. –Psalms 121:1-2

The turn from January into February can be challenging. Sometimes we enter the new year full of hope. We may make resolutions. We exercise more. We eat better. We set aside time for prayer and meditation. We relish a fresh start, and look ahead with excitement and expectancy. And, by February, some of that shine may have started to fade. Old habits return. The realities of work and life and unexpected challenges crowd out time we’d set aside for prayer and rest and activities that recharge. 

Or maybe the new year was never very shiny to start—we finished the previous year under strain and looked ahead to another year that seemed likely to involve more valleys than mountaintops. 

Being human is messy. I know that I can find myself fully present to the smallest joys in one moment—watching birds flock to seed in a dusting of snow, or hearing children’s laughter when the school down the road is at recess. And in the next, I can fall into the trap of spending an inordinate amount of mental energy ruminating on what was—what has happened in the past—and on worrying about what I imagine will be, even though I know the future is unpredictable. 

Sometimes victory means just taking a single step forward, and navigating the present day, with the knowledge that we’re never making that effort alone. I’ve often taken encouragement and inspiration from a handful of spiritual writers—Henri Nouwen, Frederick Buechner, and Thomas Merton tend to always be in that mix. And of late, one prayer from Merton (a Trappist monk) has been focal in my quiet time:

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. 

I do not see the road ahead of me. 

I cannot know for certain where it will end. 

Nor do I really know myself, 

and the fact that I think that I am following your will

 does not mean that I am actually doing so. 

But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. 

And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. 

I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. 

And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road 

though I may know nothing about it. 

Therefore will I trust you always 

though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. 

I will not fear, for you are ever with me, 

and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. But I move through today in the faith that God will help me arrive where I am to arrive, how I am to arrive, as long as I walk with Him. Because my help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.