Monday Morning Meditation #71: Let Us Go Up to the Mountain of the Lord

Many apologies for missing the posting of a MMM last week. I did not notice that the post had not gone up until later in the week as I continue with the agony of not having my computer back yet and working off an old clunker that I borrow as needed. We did get a progress report, but it was rather bleak: the techies finally figured out what happened: an unnoticed power surge fried the mother board. The fine print in my warranty says that mother boards fried by power surges are not covered, and so now I have to pay some office 3000 miles away to fix and fedex my computer. Oh well, at least I will have it back, and more engrossing of our time here is a flea battle. We are going buggy with fleas. The cold weather has forced the little biters inside, where they attacked our cats. The cats have now regained to the offensive, thanks to medicine and flea collars. Now the fleas are taking refuge on me. I am considering the possibility of picking up a large dog flea collar on the way to work today. I hope I don't get too many stares!

At any rate, I moved from flea scratching to reading. Very soon, I came across a wonderful verse, Isaiah 2: 3, which reads as follows:

“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
to the temple of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
so that we may walk in his paths.”

Reading: Isaiah 2: 3

Meditation: When I first came to faith, it was through the direct intercession of God, and in the early days of my walk with God, I would turn day after day to God, asking for lessons. There would always be a lesson, a difficult one. The difference between learning from a human teacher and learning from God is that God knows exactly where your threshold for learning lies, exactly what your Zone of Proximal Development (to use Vygotsky's term), exactly what you should be able to do when performing at your peak. No human teacher can push you the way God does because no human teacher knows your mind, heart, emotions, motivation, and potential skill set the way God does. So many times I have had to repeat a lesson over and over until the understanding became clearer and the skills more habituated for God put before me more than I thought I could handle, yet somehow I always did handle it, however poorly at first. In my experience as a student and, for a period of time, as a teacher myself, I have never experienced a teacher like God. I guess that is why Jesus is referred to in the New Testament as "Teacher" and why, in Isaiah 2, we are told that God will teach us how to walk in His paths.

Contemplation: That is far as I can go with you this Monday morning. I now retire to private prayer to repent for the times I have tried to avoid God's lessons, to praise God for perfect way in which He knows my every capability and thought, to thank God for His willingness to keep on teaching me when I fail time after time to learn His lessons well, and to ask God to help me become a better student of His ways. Then I will move on to contemplation, my favorite part of the day, letting God take over the direction in which my relationship with Him moves.

I will leave you now to your prayer and contemplation. First, though, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:

Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I think you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation posts. (During the week, he also posts great homilies and other thoughtful discussions. I enjoy reading those, too, as do readers of this blog who have taken the stroll over to his blog.)

For additional inspiration throughout the week, I would point out two sets of blogs: (1) the list of devotional blogs on my sidebar and (2) my blogroll, where I am following a number of inspirational priests and writers about spiritual matters. I learn so very much from all these people. I highly recommend them to you.