Finding the pathway

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.  I have sworn an oath and confirmed it, to observe your righteous ordinances. (NRSV, Psalm 119: 105-106)

As we begin this new year God's word in Bible reading and in prayer can be like a flashlight showing the pathway on a dark night.  But as the second verse in this selection helps us see, that flashlight is not showing us how to greedily get our own way and our success at the expense of someone else.  That light is guiding us in the pathway of God's righteousness.  If the path we're following isn't into righteousness, then the light we're following is like a will 'o the wisp leading us off the path and not the light of God.

Let us pray this week and all year:  O God, help me to tell the difference between your true light and the false images that would lead me astray.

Blessings!
Marilyn

Happy New Year!

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!  All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.  2 Corinthians 5:17-20


God has given us a new year and a new life.  As we settle in and get used to writing 2012 on everything will we settle back into the same old pattern of previous years or will we truly be ambassadors for Christ?  Will people look at us and say "If that's a christian I don't want to be like that!"?  Or will they say "You help me see what Jesus was like.  How can I be more like you?"


May God guide you and richly bless you in this new year.


Blessings!
Marilyn