ordering my day
I’ve been journaling all my life. But over the years my journaling has taken different forms. For awhile I would read scripture and then rewrite the verse in the first person, putting myself into the prayer of a psalm or into the story.
Over the last few years, my journals have reflected what I have accomplished the previous day and then what I hope to accomplish in the day ahead. If this seems less “spiritual”, I have come to see it as prayer for the day. I lay it all out for God and then ask him to direct or orchestrate my steps. I once read a book on prayer that described prayer as rowing down the stream in God’s canoe. When you pray, you will have these random thoughts come into your head…distracting thoughts from your to-do list or things you need to pick up at the grocery…like logs coming up to your canoe, you take your oar (or in this case, your pen) and you push them away by writing them down, to be dealt with later. So my exercise of writing what I’ve done, what I hope to accomplish, is pushing the log jam away before it builds up around my boat.
Once that’s done, I turn all my plans over to God in a prayer, sometimes as simple as this:
“I need to read and write and clean and rest. I need to pray and worship and be creative. I need to learn and love and lean on You. I give You this day and my life. Amen.”
The other day, after I prayed this prayer, I opened up my Bible to the book of Proverbs and read this verse:
“Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.” (Proverbs 19:21)
Wise ordering of my day begins with remembering how I got here and knowing that God’s ultimate plan for me is to know Him and enjoy Him forever. With my eternal destination secure, the route I choose today becomes less about what I do than who I’m doing it for. With that attitude I am nimble and ready to be led, and He will lead me, step by step.
Here are two prompts that I have used to open my heart in silence and solitude to really hear what the Lord desires to say to me:
- Say this verse of Psalm 46 to yourself once: “Be still and know that I am God.” Then be quiet for a few moments. Next say it again, leaving off the last word: “Be still and know that I am.” Continue to do this with a pause of several moments between each recitation until you come to the one word, “Be.” Now write down what you experienced, what God did with the words and the silence between the words.
- Write a letter to God. Tell him where you are in your life right now…your worries, your agenda, your pain, where you desire to see Him work a miracle. Then be silent. After a period of waiting, write His letter back to you. You will know that He is speaking to you because it will be a love letter. If he needs to correct you, even that will come with the voice of love. It may even become a dialogue. See where he is already supplying what you need. Hear his words of sympathy for you. Write them all down. Then write out your thanksgiving to Him.
