And this is my prayer: Part 3 of 3

Phil 1:9 And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight.

Discerning right from wrong is, at times, difficult. We develop instincts that can help us to make the right choices. These instincts are developed through study, experience we, or others have that they share with us. At times, making the right choice is often not a popular choice.

 Life is a series of choices. The may be like turn right or left, go ahead or back up. It may be a yes or no, or an extra shot of espresso or not. We make choices every day. And we have no one to blame, or credit, but ourselves because these choices we make are our choices. They belong to us. It is not a matter of God made me do it. Or the flip side made popular by the comedian Flip Wilson's character Geraldine who said "The devil made me do it." We own them. And some decisions will follow us from the day we make them for the rest of our lives.

How then are we to make good decisions? That is the crux of the matter. Knowledge and depth of insight are attributes we need. If we try to live by making decisions by the seat of our pants sooner or later, probably sooner than later, will make bad decisions. When we involve the Lord in our decision making process we stand a much better chance of doing the right thing. Granted, when we pray we do not always receive the immediately. The answer comes in the Lord's time. We can improve our odds by maintaining a daily scripture reading program. Keeping in the Word helps us to hear what the Lord has to say in what He has given us in His Word. Seeking advice from fellow believers is another way we can make sound decisions. When we are part of the great cloud of believers we have peers to share their experiences, insight, and love of Christ. We are surrounded by people who love one another as we love ourselves. We all want to help others to not make the same mistakes that we or those we know have made. We have each others back. So we can, as a body of believers share our knowledge and depth of insight. Two minds are better than one, four better than two, and so forth. We share our knowledge, and experience so that our love may abound more and more.  Just as Christ shared his love with us, and his knowledge and depth of insight with us, so to do we with others. We pay it forward.

PRAYER: Father, we are like little children. We seek to learn. We yearn to walk on our own. Pride drives us to foolishness. Help us, O God to remember to involve You in our lives. Strengthen our faith so that we may overcome our sinful and prideful nature. Let the love Your Son shared with all flow into and our of us to others. We ask this in the name of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.