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PRAYERS

for the

Journey Along

THE WAY

(6) TRUST

My Lord and my God --

 

Here I am again. I fall down before You again, trying to fully trust You in Your divine Wisdom and Love, trying to obey You and follow You and Your will in all things.  But I need Your help desperately, for without it I sure flop down right smack on my face.  It is so difficult to trust You when so little appears to be working out right, and things are the opposite of what "conventional wisdom" deems good.  When family, friends and "conventional wisdom" all say to do what to most people would seem to be the obvious, and You say, "No, don't do it --- absolutely, positively, don't do it," --- it sure is tough to trust You.  I'm  going to need an awful lot of Your Grace to trust You, and not to give in to all the pressure of those around me, and to all that I have assimilated from the world around me regarding how to "get on" in life.  You tell me to act contrary to what I have been  socialized to think is "common sense."  Lord, please help me to by-pass what appears to be best, when You tell me to do something different.

I think of some of Your Holy Ones, whom we call "Fools for Christ," such as Blessed St. Xenia of St. Petersburg.  All her family and friends really thought she was absolutely crazy, when, after  her husband died, she gave away all that she had --- her fine home and everything in it, all her beautiful clothes, and everything that could have provided the 26-year old widow with a "means of living" and "security."  But she proved them all wrong, because she knew that only You provide a true means of living and security.  In the eyes of the world, she had "flipped" --- she was a fool; but in Your eyes, she was truly wise --- wise with the true wisdom, the divine Wisdom.

Please, Lord, help me to accept being a fool in the eyes of others, as long as I do as You instruct me to do.  Please fill me with Your strength so that I may be conformed to Your Image and to Your Will.  Without Your strength there is no way that I can reject and go against all that the "world" says is important, and to live for You alone.  One part of me, my higher self, knows that money, security, position, prestige, possessions --- all the things that the "world" deems important --- really are worth nothing, for my heart is filled with Your Presence.  But yet there is another part of me that still lives in and is affected by the world and its values.  Please fill my heart so much with Your love that the noise of the world and its values become but the slightest inaudible whisper.   Please fill my heart so much with Your all-consuming Presence that I might fully trust You, and follow in the way in which You direct me, knowing that as long as I obediently submit to Your Will, I will possess Your wisdom, and that is all that counts, no matter how foolish I may appear to others. Amen.

(by a member of St. Innocent Orthodox Community, Redford, Michigan)

The icon of "Christ Made-Without-Hands" (detail) is by Fr. Theodore Jurewicz

and is at St. Innocent Orthodox Church, Redford, Michigan.

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Last modified: December 04, 2006