Daily Devotionals
December 27, 2018
Have Thine Own Way
December 27, 2018
DAILY READING
Jeremiah 18:1-11
This weekend’s reading: 1 Peter 1:13-16
FIELD NOTES
Adelaide Pollard wanted to go to Africa as a missionary in 1902. Discouraged because she did not have the money to make the trip, she went to an evening prayer service. During the service she overheard another woman say, “It really doesn’t matter what you do with us, Lord, just have your own way with our lives.” The image of the potter from Jeremiah 18:3 came to her mind. When she got home, she wrote “Have Thine Own Way” in its entirety in a brief period of time.
1. Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way! Thou art the Potter, I am the clay.
Mold me and make me after Thy will; While I am waiting, yielded and still.
2. Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way! Search me and try me, Master, today!
Whiter than snow, Lord, wash me just now, As in Thy presence humbly I bow.
3. Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way! Wounded and weary, help me, I pray!
Power, all power, surely is Thine! Touch me and heal me, Savior divine.
4. Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way! Hold o’er my being absolute sway!
Fill with Thy Spirit ’till all shall see Christ only, always, living in me.
Later George Stebbins wrote the tune, “Adelaide,” in remembrance of her.
This weekend, we have a chance to renew our relationship with God as we begin 2019 through The Covenant in the Wesleyan Tradition, which expresses the same trust in God as Have Thine Own Way. If you are memorizing it, I suggest you continue memorizing it two lines a day and keep the words in your mind through the day. If you started yesterday, complete the memorization of the first four lines.
I am no longer my own, but yours. Put me to what you
put me to doing, put me to suffering; let me be employed for you, or laid aside for you,
exalted for you, or brought low for you;
let me be full, let me be empty, let me have all things, let me have nothing:
I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things to your pleasure and disposal.
And now, glorious and blessed God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
you are mine and I am yours. So be it.
And the covenant now made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FIELD
- What are
some times when you experienced disappointment because you could not do some things you wanted to do? - What are times after disappointment that you discovered that God provided something else instead?
- Are you experiencing a present disappointment, now
- Are you discovering God’s guidance now?
- Are you able to say, “Have thine own way, Lord?”
- What are disappointments?
- What are some disappointments your family experienced?
- How might God give us something else better?
- How has God been with you in the disappointments providing something else?
- How might you trust God through the disappointments?
PRAYER