future.

I'm doing an advent devotional to prepare for the Christmas season. It always starts out with a prayer for each week and this week was so beautifully written and very close to my heart. 

Lord, I was ever greedy of life, my attention always straining toward the parts of it that had not yet come...toward what was about to be, or might be, or hopefully would be, and especially toward those things that, by Your mercy, might turn out not to be after all. 

I panted with longing to suck each segment of life dry of its pleasures. I plotted, with myself but despite myself, about tomorrow...about the "later" that was constantly morphing into now. You know how I worked, Lord, recklessly but prayerfully, to set time's courses and, in Your name, to sculpt them to my intention, to my definition of good.

But I am old now, Lord, and my prayers grown old as well. So it is that daily I am drawn, as here, to pray, "Deliver me, My lord, from this my great sin, and take me, free of doubt and other longings, into Your good plan."

This is my prayer for life. I am constantly looking to the later. The later that always morphs into the now. Student teaching, graduation, getting a job. There is so much that lies ahead that is going to knock me off my rocker. Lord, let this prayer be in my tired heart. Don't let me wait until old age to pray a prayer of trust. A prayer that clings to your will, not trying to sculpt something into my intention according to my definition of good. You are good. You are faithful. 

K. I love you. I know He has a great plan for our future. Even if neither of us gets jobs and we're forced to live in a boxes. He is good and has been so good to us for so long. Why would that change now? And the best part about it is that He is good according to his definition of good, not ours. Let's pray this prayer. Our future, both individually and together, is in good hands.