Father, it’s the dark day of Easter weekend. It’s the day when your disciples and followers were in their deepest despair. They had lost you. They had failed you. They were doubting everything. They were afraid for their lives. The could not see what was going on around them. They couldn’t see their present, they couldn’t interpret their past, and they couldn’t fathom the future. They were lost in the moment, and I’m sure it was torture to them.

I confess to you that I am not in their desperate situation, but I am just as blind. I have something in my life that is concerning me, and I feel like you are calling me to address it. How do I do it and do no harm?

Fifteen months ago, I had something that was really on my heart, and, while I was at a retreat, I felt the Holy Spirit really urge me that it was time to assess it. I had to take some responsibility and not passively sit back and watch the train wreck that I saw coming. I prayed. I asked for your guidance. And it turned out, in retrospect to be the right thing to do. The last year would have been much more difficult for not only the person who concerned me, but also for their loved ones if I hadn’t. I didn’t know that at the time. I didn’t know the ramifications of my actions. I just knew you were calling me to act.

Now, I’m in a situation where I am trying to discern between the Holy Spirit’s call and my own heart’s desire. And maybe they are one and the same. But I have to be careful on this one because there is a lot of my personal emotion wrapped up in it. I have to be careful.

Father, I know you intentionally keep me on a need-to-know basis. If I knew the future it would change how I respond to the present. If I had known how 2020 would unfold for the person you laid on my heart 15 months ago, it would have impacted what I did. As I look back now, I think I did exactly what I was supposed to do, and, for that, I am grateful. So please lead me in that same way. Help me to not see everything you see. I know better than to ask for that. No, I ask that you help me to see what you need me to see. And I don’t know that I’ll be able to look back on it a year from now and see things wrapped up in a nice, neat bow like they are with the other situation, but if I can just move forward in your Spirit and with your wisdom and leading that will be enough or me. At least I think it will. How about this? I pray that you will guide me through seeing exactly what you want me to see, responding exactly how you need me to respond, and then living in peace knowing you will is being done beyond what I can see.

In Jesus’s name I pray,

Amen