I heard Elizabeth Gilbert interviewed on the radio. She is the woman who went on a journey around the world to discover greater meaning in her life. She wrote about it in EAT, PRAY, LOVE and made millions on this best seller.
I was never inclined to read her book, though my wife did, as somewhat of a cultural awareness obligation. After hearing Gilbert on the radio, I looked up some excerpts from her book, and found this gem:
“You need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select your clothes every day. This is a power you can cultivate. If you want to control things in your life so bad, work on the mind. That's the only thing you should be trying to control.”
I don’t think this applies to the haphazard dresser who wears one sock brown and the other one blue, but the point is a good one all the same. I like even better the guidance for the mind offered by A.W. Tozer in his devotional study called The Pursuit of God. He suggests seven questions that he calls Rules for Self-Discovery. You don’t have to go anywhere to make the discoveries offered by these answers and what is learned on the journey can suggest where to go next:
- What do I want most?
- What do I think about most?
- How do I use my money?
- What do I do with my leisure time?
- Whose company do I enjoy?
- Who and what do I admire?
- What do I laugh at?
Tozer follows these questions with a prayer
Father, I want to know Thee, but my cowardly heart fears to give up its toys. I cannot part with them without inward bleeding, and I do not try to hide from Thee the terror of the parting. I come trembling, but I do come. Please root from my heart all those things which I have cherished so long and which have become a very part of my living self, so that Thou mayest enter and dwell there without a rival. Then Thou shalt make the place of Thy feet glorious. Then shall my heart have no need of the sun to shine in it, for Thyself wilt be the light of it, and there shall be no night there. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
That’s a prayer that can nourish the soul and lead to a life of love.
