God's Word for today

Thursday 20 November 2008

Lord, grant me patience...now!

I don't know about some of you, but I've never been one to back down from speaking my mind. I tend to have strong views on certain things, particularly when it comes to what I perceive to be unethical behaviour, and I've been the cause of more than one rather heated debate at Circuit Quarterly Meetings.

So much so that one of the ministers in my current Circuit advised me, during probation, to "keep my head down, my nose clean, and my mouth shut". Yeah, right - like THAT's going to happen! While I believe that I do have a healthy respect for authority, I'm also no-body's "yes-man".

But I received this prayer from a fellow member of Toastmasters (which I'll speak about more in a future post), which puts a little perspective on things.

"Lord, keep me from becoming talkative and possessed with the idea that I must express myself on every subject.

Release me from the craving to straighten out everyone's affairs

Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally I may be wrong.

Make me helpful but not bossy.

With my vast store of wisdom and experience it does seem a pity not to use it all -

But Thou knowest, Lord that I want a few friends in the end."

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