Reinvention Through Prayer

     I attended a course a while back in which I was encouraged to write my life goals down. The question we began with was “What do you want people to say about you on your 85th birthday?”

    My first response was, “I want them to say, congratulations your still kickin'”. Men in my family don’t make to 85 very often so that in itself will be a feat.

    As I thought of the question though I began to question it’s legitimacy.  We are all constantly in a state of reinventing ourselves. Each sunrise is a new day that brings with it choices that will better or worsen us in ways we can only begin to imagine.

     I suppose it is a common goal of men and women across the face of the planet to make each day a little better than the last.

   My wife and I are at a crosroads right now. That crossroads has brought with it a host of decisions,little and big, each one burgeoning with the possibility of monumental change. Yet one of the things we are learning is that the changes which come, the opportunites for reinvention are not totally within our control. There are so many outward forces working upon the hull of our lives that to say we can totally decide what our testimonials will be when we are 85 seems to me at best naive and at worst presumptuous.

    Now don’t get me wrong, I believe in planning. I have my schedule a year out. I sit down and weekly organize my life into its routine. I think anyone who doesn’t sit and think about their current and future direction is immersed in idiocy. However I question the wisdom of thinking we can just blithely lay out our personal goals without giving a measure of respect to the Master Builder of our lives. If we are in the process of reinventing our lives, doesn’t it make sense that we should consult the Original Inventor?

     I’m talking about prayer, people. Specifically I am talking about prayer to Jesus, the Word of God, who made us all and who holds all things together. In our age of self-help we have forgotten that we were never meant to help ourselves, we were meant to let God help us.

    Let’s face it, He is the only One who really knows where we’ll be when we are 85. In truth He is the only One who knows where we will be tomorrow. That means without His help we can only make an educated guess about our future. This is no aspersion on anyone’s education but however many degrees you may have you could not possibly do a better job of planning your life than Jesus could. 

    Over the next several days I think I will blog about how I have been learning to reinvent myself and our family through prayer. I hope someone out there benefits from reading about my journey