I began tonight’s prayer period with Matthew 13:44-46, the parables of the Treasure and the Pearl. As I was talking with my Father about these, He led me to look at the various projects I’m involved with and how they relate to the person He wants me to be. There is never enough time for everything I need to do and want to do. He showed me that this is a sign that, while I am following His promptings in what He wants me to do, I’m also stubbornly clinging to others that should have a lower priority for now. He led me to establishing a new set of priorities, putting all those things that He has directly led me to first. To do my best in these, I will have to drop some other projects or keep them as spare time activities. These are either not part of His plan for me, or they will be raised to a higher priority at another time in my life. I feel like a lot of pressure has been taken off me! Now I can bring order out of this chaos. (1)

We moved on to Mark 10:17-27, the story of the rich young man. My Father gave me some good advice while we talked about this. With the extra medical expenses I’ve been having lately, I’ve been tempted to tighten up a bit on my charitable donations. My Father urged me not to do that. If I need the money, He will see that it’s replaced. If I don’t need it, then I don’t need it, but others do. It’s as simple as that.

We went to Luke 9:57-62 next. This has always been a difficult passage for me. Our Lord seems so harsh! The man isn’t supposed to go to his father’s funeral; another man isn’t supposed to say good-bye to his family or set their minds to rest as to where and why he was going. To my earth-bound thinking, it would seem better if Jesus had gone with them and had used the chance to preach to the families and friends of these men. But what do I know! There was a reason for this seeming harshness, and I asked my Father about it. He confirmed that it was not as it seemed, but the next thing I knew I was waking up, and the prayer period time was over. I felt led to wait on this a while yet, so I’ll come back to this tomorrow.

(1) Spiritual director: This is good.