I'm walking to campus and an Irish gust is blowing autumn leaves off, as if to make sure you got the message, "you are in the fall!" This fall is unique in so many ways. I have had a grueling year of adjustment in a new country, I am going into the second year of my PhD and I have witnessed an internal growth spurt. If I had to give a report of the past academic year, it would be this:
"My favourite thing lately is the discipline of prayer" More true, my favourite thing lately is the discovery of new insights about the discipline of prayer. Prayer as a pivotal tool for spiritual success. Prayer as a desire to be more Christlike. Prayer as a channel to re-positioned passions. Prayer as a spirit-enabled work. Prayer as a journey to a more sound theology revealed through the Holy Spirit. Prayer as a ramble. Prayer as a centring exercise. Prayer as a solitary place. Most importantly, prayer as a learning process. To recap the past year, I have written a prayer for the next few years of my PhD. I understand that although God does not need me to pray, it is necessary for me to be disciplined in prayer because to pray is to change. "Lord, thank you for the gift of education. Thank you for my gift of higher education. I get to do what I love and I get to grow in it. Thank you Lord for being present in the seemingly mundane and repetitive nature of it. Thank you for carrying me through the challenging and often sustained periods of solitariness and frustration. I now understand that you are after my heart more than you are focused on my circumstances. I now know that you are transforming my passions and my focus. Lord you are a good Sheppard. I need your continued guidance. In moments or seasons when my work tempts me to be isolated from your community, I pray you will remind me that I thrive in community. In my weak moments of wanting to chase prestige, sense of ambition and sense of importance, I pray I will always find my way to you, where all these are readily given in accordance of your will through Christ. Lord, help me desecrate my idols tied to academia. May I have the will and courage to throw them away like a menstrual cloth."
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Rea Zwane"I am just trying to live it up with a big God" Archives
April 2022
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