Episode 69: Isaiah 35:8-10
Transcription
Before we get into our prayer today, I wanted to let you know some exciting news. My book, Yes, Father: A Daughter’s Journey to Forgiveness will be on sale on Amazon through December so that you get the best option while Christmas shopping. I pray you will consider what caregivers or friends you can gift this book to. Please don’t hesitate to go to my website www.thejulihernandez.com while doing your online shopping and let me know if you decide to buy and who you bought it for. I would love to pray for them. That’s a great way to find out more about the book and who it’s for.
https://books2read.com/yesfather
And don’t forget while you’re getting the book for someone else, to leave a review. That way more people can find the story that I hope was a blessing to you. Now, on to our prayer.
Today’s verse is Isaiah 35:8-10
And a highway will be there;
it will be called the Way of Holiness;
it will be for those who walk on that Way.
The unclean will not journey on it;
wicked fools will not go about on it.
No lion will be there,
nor any ravenous beast;
they will not be found there.
But only the redeemed will walk there,
and those the Lord has rescued will return.
They will enter Zion with singing;
everlasting joy will crown their heads.
Gladness and joy will overtake them,
and sorrow and sighing will flee away.
Let’s pray together.
God, I walk my own road and I can see it stretched out before me, mile upon mile. It seems to head in the direction I want to go. The places I want to visit lie along the path. It takes me to places I have been before, safe places, known places. As I walk, I stumble. There are potholes and it’s unsteady ground. But my eyes are fixed on the destination ahead, that place I desperately want to get to. I keep falling, but I keep getting up and hobbling, crawling forward.
Help me hear Your voice telling me where to go. When You tell me to stop, help me to stop. When You want me to change the way I’m going, turn me around. The destination is Yours, I believe that, but I don’t want to get there via a road that twists me into someone unfit to be there. I might not know the way so well, and I might not be able to see places I want to see yet and I might not revisit the old haunts, but that is for You to decide, not me.
Help me desire to go Your way. Create in me fresh need and joyful obedience. Help me be excited about the adventure You’re taking me on. I want to be fully invested in our life and walk together. So change my heart. Renew it. Let it be soft, a heart of flesh, not a stone etched with the wrongdoing of years, cracked with my own faulty desires. I want to be surrendered to You.
I know Your way is the right way. I know that it’s for the redeemed, for the holy, for the chosen, for the ones submitted to You. As I walk my own pitiful, determined, self-focused way, You ride in on Your white horse, charging in to the nightmare and gloom, and sweep me off my feet, carrying me, rescuing me, providing for me. Providing the right, good way. The way of You.
Don’t let me go back, LORD. Don’t let me pick up the staff of my own forging, the staff of self-dependence and desperate control. Don’t let me push and scramble my way through briar and thorn, desperate to get back to a place where I decide where my steps fall. Circle me with protection, even from myself. Guide my eyes against distraction. I am the unclean, the wicked, the fool, but You have washed me and changed me. Don’t let me put on that skin again. It’s not worthy of You and I so desperately want to be where You are.
Hold my hand, tell me stories, guide me. I want You to be my companion. I want You to be with me at all times. I want to glory in Your presence. I want to be a delight in Your eyes. I want to sing. I want to return to the place I was destined to be, by the road You planned for me before my birth, with the people You’ve given me, using the tools You’ve placed in my hands. But it’s You, it’s You, it’s You. None of that belongs to me or is a credit to me. So let all the glory be Yours, let it always be so clear that You are the source and the provider of all my needs.
Jesus, be the comforter in the midst of sorrow until it is fled away. Let all the distress and worries be carried on Your shoulders and don’t let me take them back again. I can’t carry them, only You can. I pray the joy and mirth and deep contented peace that are Yours would extend to me. Let me be dedicated and focused and yet never far from love and laughter. Crown me with Your abiding happiness. Let me be home with You and on the way home with You. But again, let it be You.
I love You, Jesus, the Great Shepherd. I pray that I never forget that fact and that each day, I am the lost sheep You return to find when I stray. Oh, help me not to stray.
I pray this in the peace and love and joy and hope of Jesus’ name. Amen.
