The X of Clarity and the Secret Weapon Prayer

Summer is slowly slip sliding into back-to-school season.

Are kids going back? No one knows for sure. It’s a moving target, thanks to the coronavirus.

Colleges are announcing openings, then closings a week later. Sports are on, then off. Eating out is encouraged, then discouraged. Schools everywhere are figuring out what is best for the students, staff, teachers and parents.

There’s no one-size-fits-all perfect pandemic answer.

How do we make any decisions during this pandemic?

Clarity. I pray for clarity. And if I missed it, I use my Secret Weapon Prayer:

“Dear God, I need the kind of clarity only You can give. I’ve prayed for it and listened but am still lost and confused. I have faith in your great love for me so I must have missed the clarity you already sent. Please be more obvious. Send me a spotlight, a sledgehammer or a billboard.”

God usually sends all three.

Until you get your clarity, the pandemic can make everything feel like a moving target. Nothing feels certain.

One thing is for me. The one thing that never, ever changes.

My focus. My aim. That tiny X in the center of my Target of Life.

In archery, I never aim for the outer rings. No one does. Those white rings are bigger and easier to hit, but you only get 1 point for landing an arrow in the largest ring. Hit that tiny X in the middle? You score a perfect 10.

The X in my life target is me & God. No one else. That’s my every day aim. Time with God. That’s where I get clarity, which usually means the next right step. God rarely makes a Big Reveal of the giant leap or hands me the blueprint to my life. God does give me clarity to take the next, clear, simple, right step.

Meditation and journal writing helps me to hear and see and feel what that is. Every day, my job is to show up and listen.

Maybe that is where the pandemic is calling us all. Not to be out and about, but to be in and abide in the Secret Place of the Most High, that clear, calm place where God runs the show and we simply surrender to whatever happens next.