Lent: Day 32

“Before a word is on my tongue, You, Lord, know it completely.” – Psalm 139

How do we know we are doing the right thing? This is one of the perennial questions that we recently discussed in a class led by Pastor Jim. In our lives, we are continually faced with choices that affect those around us, sometimes giving even the most practical decisions an ethical dimension.

I remember the shock of my first encounter with a sandwich bar in Chicago. In the UK, the choice was usually just ham or cheese. Here, in the US, I had to choose the type of bread, detail all the fillings, decide on mayo or mustard, pasta or pretzels on the side. I just wanted a sandwich. If I found these choices overwhelming, how do I choose when there are real consequences for those around me, those I love and those I don’t know?

I think we all want to act for the right reasons, but the problem is that we are very good at deluding ourselves about our own motives. T. S. Eliot once wrote in his poem, Little Gidding, that one of the gifts of old age is “the awareness of things ill done and done to others’ harm, which once you took for exercise of virtue.”

I believe that this is the real power of prayer. When I pray, I am aware that I am praying to a God who understands me better than I understand myself. There is no point in trying to pull the wool over God’s eyes - in fact, we need to let God help us search ourselves, and understand the lingering resentments or ambition or prejudice that might really underlie some of our choices. This makes prayer a liberation, because it helps us to find out who we really are, as well as allowing God to guide us in the right direction.

In our class, I think we decided that we won’t necessarily know whether we have done the right thing or not, because it can take a long time for the true consequences of our actions to be understood. But, at least we can try to let God purify our motives through prayer.

Prayer: Lord, help us to know ourselves as you know us, and trust in your guidance when we seek it out. Amen.