Show me your ways, O LORD,
teach me your paths;
guide me in your truth and teach me,
for you are God my Savior,
and my hope is in you all day long.
Psalm 25:4-5
Jesus told his followers that the day would come when his followers would no longer see him but that “the Counselor, the Holy Spirit…will teach you all things.” (John 14:26)
Prayer is sometimes the experience of being taught by God. Our part in this kind of prayer is to let ourselves be humble, curious and teachable. Our part is to let go of the idea that we have the ability to figure things out on our own, that we already have the answers, that we already know what we need to know. Our part is to invite and keep inviting the Spirit to teach us, correct us and guide us, realizing that our knowledge and understanding are limited.
It is a remarkable thing to think about God as our Teacher. It is an even more remarkable reality to experience God as our Teacher.
Many of us struggle to believe that God loves us. We may believe that God is a God of love, but find that we do not trust that God loves us in any personal or meaningful way. Perhaps we feel invisible, insignificant, abandoned.
What we can do is to ask the Spirit to teach us. We can ask the Spirit to teach us that we are loved. Day after day we can pray this prayer and watch and wait for answers. Over time, they will come. In surprising, powerful, life changing ways the Spirit will teach us, show us, and allow us to experience God’s love.
The teaching may come directly from whispers of the Spirit to our spirits. Sometimes it will come through Scripture or other reading. Sometimes it will come through experiences of grace in relationships.
We can become students in the school of our loving Creator. The Spirit will teach our hearts to know and to rest in God’s unfailing, tender, personal, powerful love for us. On a daily basis we can invite the Spirit to be our Teacher. We can invite God to show us whatever God wants to show us. We can invite God to correct us and guide us.
“Teach, me Lord,” we pray with the psalmist, “teach me, for you are my God, my hope, my salvation, my life.”
Be my teacher.
Teach me your ways.
Open my heart to your love.
Show me the truth of who you are.
Give me a humble, teachable spirit.
May I watch and listen
for your teaching,
your guidance,
your instruction.
Prayer suggestion:
Invite the Spirit to teach you in specific ways about whatever it is that you need to learn at this time in your life.
Ask God to give you a humble, teachable spirit.
I’ve not really trusted that God loves me in a personal, meaningful way. I’ve struggled to know and embrace what love really is … feeling unloveable, lost, insignificant, and not worthy of His love because of the things I have done… Repulsive things I had no choice in doing. Repulsive things that haunt me. I hope He washes me clean, and frees me from my past. It seems like a prison locked by painful experiences and haunted by confusing feelings. I hope to learn how to pray like this so His Spirit will teach us we are loved, and show us the truth of who He is and what His love is really like. I am afraid He might not answer like this,but tell me I am not worthy of His love, His Son. I hope soon I can pray in faith and not in fear. This is my hope.
I am praying this with you and for you, Jackie. May you know yourself loved by God with a love that is unshakeable, unconditional, tender and strong.