Dcn Susan Erickson

Shew me thy ways, O Lord *
and teach me thy paths.
Lead me forth in thy truth, and learn me *
for thou art the God of my salvation; in thee hath been my hope all the day long.…

What man is he, that feareth the Lord *
him shall he teach in the way that he shall choose.
His soul shall dwell at ease *
and his seed shall inherit the land.

Dear Siblings in Christ,

I found immediate comfort in Psalm 25, the appointed psalm for today’s Daily Office. I’m in the midst of packing up the place we have made our part-time home for almost a decade, and for me that’s a long time to have been in one place, even for part of the year.  Although our next stop will be a late-in-life adventure—one that I’m looking forward to (especially as we’re keeping one foot in Tucson!)—the path between here and there is not an easy one, as everyone who has picked up stakes knows. What can I do without?  Am I going to continue to carry around old letters I wrote to my parents in college (which they saved) from one place to the other?  Mementos from trips? Finisher ribbons from races run?

It all matters…but in the end, not so much. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.” (Is 55:8). What matters is opening myself to the path God reveals, as the psalmist does when he entreats God to “shew me thy ways … and teach me thy paths.” And if I could say with the psalmist that “in thee hath been my hope all the day long,” I would get out from under the stress caused by the mounds of stuff we now have to get rid of.

If I “feared” God, that is, truly reverenced and therefore trusted God, I would have confidence that God will continue to teach me the way that God—not I—chooses.

And maybe, just maybe, my restless soul would at long last “dwell at ease” in the land given me. Not a geographic promised land (as much as I still seem to believe that one exists), but in the place won for me by God’s love in Christ:  a place in the already-begun-and-coming Kingdom of God. The one that our church community at Saint Philip’s is always in the process of embodying.

My parents didn’t leave me a house or a farm or a ranch. But I, like you, am an heir of that Kingdom land. Thanks be to God.

—Dcn Susan