This week we pray with Bishop Christian Alsted of the Nordic and Baltic Central Conferences, leading the United Methodist Church in “Praying Our Way Forward” for the week of March 11-17, 2018.
Below you will find the text from the Tennessee Annual Conference 40 Days of Prayer initiative:
“During the Council of Bishops’ meeting last week, Council President Bishop Bruce Ough shared his thoughts on ways to proceed in uncharted territory.
He shared that in the book, Canoeing the Mountains,* author Tod Bolsinger uses the metaphor of the Lewis and Clark expedition to explore the Louisiana Purchase to illustrate the leadership needed to “go off the map into unknown territory.” When they reached the Lemhi Pass in the massive Rocky Mountains, they realized their canoes were useless to traverse the mountains.
Bishop Ough continued, “Not only were their canoes useless, they had absolutely no knowledge of anything beyond the Rocky Mountains. They were going into unchartered territory. They were going off the map. Bolsinger writes: The only member of the Corps of Discovery with experience beyond the Lemhi Pass, indeed the only member of the Corps of Discovery who was not in unchartered territory when they crossed the Continental Divide and headed over the Rocky Mountains was the Native American teenage mother with her nursing baby.”
“Sacagawea was from the Shoshone tribe which lived in the area the Corps of Discovery was entering. Sacagawea was not venturing into unexplored territory; she was going home. (p. 191)”
“Sacagawea was a part of the Corps of Discovery, but she was on the “edge of the inside” and consequently, had a different mind in her. She was not dependent on the status quo to guide Lewis and Clark. She was not dependent on canoes. She was not dependent on established maps. She was not dependent on what had worked up to that point in the expedition. She had a picture of home in her mind and a hunger for home in her heart that served as her map, her compass, her focus, her grounding.”
Question: Where or when has God sent a guide to help you navigate through the uncharted territories of your life?
Prayer:
Gracious Lord, we are relying on you to provide a guide into our future. We are thankful that your Holy Spirit can provide the voice, the knowledge, the wisdom and the desire to lead us where you are calling us to go. Place in us an explorer’s spirit, the longing to see where our canoes won’t travel. Amen.
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