The heart set to do the Father's will need never fear defeat. His promises of guidance may be fully counted upon. Does it make sense to believe that the Shepherd would care less about getting His sheep where He wants them to go than they care about getting there?

The believer alone will be able to hear the call. It comes from beyond ourselves, beyond our society, beyond the climate of opinion and prejudice and rebellion and skepticism in which we live, and beyond our time and taste. It draws toward the center of all things, that still place of which T.S. Eliot wrote : Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled About the centre of the silent Word.

Our major problems of acceptance and trust usually have to do with timing, because God's timetable is always different from ours. He wants me to wait in order to believe, in order to learn to put my faith in His timing.

God will see to it that we understand as much truth as we are willing to obey.

The real question we need to face is exactly what a Christian is supposed to do when terrible things happen. There are two choices, and only two: We can trust God or we can defy Him. We believe that God is God, He's still got the whole world in His hands and knows exactly what He's doing, or we must believe that He is not God and we are at the awful mercy of mere chance.

A great many things determine how people live, and money is not at the top of the list. Choices are always available. What you choose will depend on how you see things: yourself, your work, your right to express taste and desire and personality, your understanding of the love of God as expressed in His creation and order and harmony.

Nothing that comes to me is void of divine purpose. In seeking to see the whole with God's eyes, we can find the peace which human events so often destroy.

Learning to pray is learning to trust the wisdom, the power, and the love of our Heavenly Father, always so far beyond our dreams.

You can become a channel and a source of great inner strength. But you must give up everything in order to gain everything. What must you give up? All that is not truly you; all that you have chosen without choosing and value without evaluating, accepting because of someone else's extrinsic judgment, rather than your own; all your self-doubt that keeps you from trusting and loving yourself or other human beings.

If my life is surrendered to God, all is well. Let me not grab it back, as though it were in peril in His hand but would be safer in mine!

Exchange the bad habit of worrying with the excellent habit of trusting God.

And now, dear Lord, I acknowledge afresh that You are the God of all peace, my Jehovah-Shalom. My job is to receive. you give me Your peace. My job is to take it. You lead me to Your still waters. My role is to follow. You extend Your hand. My role is to take hold. My I enjoy Your presence and the tranquility of the still waters where You pour out your promise of peace. Amen.