“Incline My Heart…”

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New Year’s Eve, making resolutions, pondering the future, looking back, wondering where time went…all that and more occupies a lot of us on December 31 or in the first days of the new year.  I have, in the past, made resolutions to lose weight, exercise, pray more, pray better, clean my desk, read some of the books piled up next to my bed before I get one more new one – you get the picture.  I would imagine some of you find yourselves in the same situation.

But this year, I will aim to make one dear and familiar line from Psalm 119 the only resolution I want to work toward:  “Incline my heart according to your will, O God.”    I love the verb “incline” –to move toward.  For me that takes in all the fits and starts, the two steps back as well as two (or hopefully three) steps forward in listening to the Spirit, in waiting in silence, in opening myself to big questions and no clear answers, in peace.  May your hearts incline toward God’s will for you in this new year of life and this new moment of possibility. 

S. Priscilla Wood, OP
Dubuque, IA


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