My Way? Your Way? The Highway?

My Way?   Your Way?  The Highway?

I will instruct you and teach you in the way that you should go;

I will guide you with My eye.

Psalm 32:8

If you are a teacher of any kind, you know the fact that some people do not want to be taught.  It is as if the student silently says, “Dear Teacher: Sorry, but no matter what your educational background is, or how much experience you have to back up your teaching, your opinion is not wanted.”

Several years ago, I attended a vocal Master Class at Carnegie Hall in New York City, where four collegiate singers had the opportunity to work with one of the world’s great sopranos.  One self-assured young man stepped up to stage front and sang his selected aria.  When he finished, the world-famous singer complimented his voice and technique, then pointed out that he was mispronouncing a word and told him how to sing it.  She asked him to sing that passage again.  He did – the exact same way he sang it the first time.  She rose from her seat, went over to him at the piano, pointed out the same word in her copy of the music score, and sang it for him this time, showing him how to pronounce it.  She then asked him to sing the passage again.  He sang it the exact same way he had twice before.  This time she asked him to sit down and moved on to another student who might be interested in the wisdom she had to share.

God’s Word is full of necessary information to guide our lives in the right paths, but we have our own way of doing things and are not always amenable to His guidance.  When I was in college, a good friend shared the quotation below, written by C. S. Lewis.  It is a wonderful reminder to me that, although God knows the path far better than we do, He will never force His guidance on us.  We can choose to go our own way.

There are two kinds of people:

Those who say to God, “Thy will be done,”

And those to whom God says,

“All right, then – have it your way.”

~C. S. Lewis

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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.

The United Methodist Hymnal, No. 382