Keep running/Not alone

Psalm 5:3 In the morning You hear my voice, O Lord; In the morning I prepare (a prayer, a sacrifice) for You and watch and wait( for you to speak to my heart).

Give us this day our daily bread, don't look back, don't look too far forward, don't worry, don't fear.  Sometimes contentment seems like a tall order,

I looked up "The Lord's Prayer" in my you version app and to my surprise the first thing that popped up was not the prayer that Jesus taught the disciples but loads and loads of prayers lifted up throughout the Bible.  Prayers with incense, prayers laid flat, prayers of a nation.  I read words like "You hear me" and "because I was bold enough to pray this prayer" and the thing that crosses my mind is that I'm not alone.  I can look into the Bible and view how people throughout history have wrestled with the reality of walking with the Eternal and see that it's not so different from my own path.  Crying out, asking questions.  Thinking God is crazy and at the same time knowing he is faithful.  Please wet the fleece.  Please dry the fleece now too.  Learning to trust a wild and loving God.

I saw that God instructed someone to burn incense as a symbol of prayer.  Incense permeates the area around it filling a room in all in its cracks and crevices.  Our prayers are changing the atmosphere around us(and in us) as well as being heard by and delighting the heart of our father God.  How beautiful is it that God gives us tangible things to grasp the intangible.  Something to taste, touch, smell, see or hear.

So it's one day at a time.  Choosing prayer instead of fear or checking out to my phone or to a project when things arise.  A few months ago a problem surfaced again with one of my boys that had taken me over with worry for him, for his future.  The worry did nothing to bring any change though.  It only served to halt me in any progress while I built imaginative horror stories of his future.  Let's not entertain imaginative fear for too long or he'll show up unexpected(anxiety, panic).  So I'm praying and taking my eyes off the worry-induced pretend future I've made for him to uplift and encourage my real son in the here and now.

God says he has good plans for him anyway.

I've had some answers and acting on them has already begun to bring good fruit but I still need to lean into God for my path.  So thankful for the encouragement of the many who've followed God throughout history that tell us that he hears us, sees us and show us that he moves for us.  If we stepped into the middle of their stories we'd probably see the glorious messes that they were, full of faith, desperation and uncertainty but you look a little further and you get to see the miraculous.  Thank God for their complete stories and God in the midst of them.  Not alone, not alone, not alone.

God I trust you with all the uncertainty and pray that you would take my hand as I run headstrong into the unknown.

Hebrews 12:1-3
12 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.