Prayer for Flexibility

There are moments in life when we have terrible ideas that somehow work out. This poem is the product of one such terrible idea that God aided in the end. 

During my junior year of high school, two other friends and I had the brilliant idea to get together and have each person write one section of a prayer poem reflecting on the topic of flexibility. As you might imagine, each of us had extremely different writing styles, with different rhyme and meter patterns. Yet the core message in each line perfectly encapsulated our personal experiences with this difficult-to-develop trait. With a bit of tweaking to smooth out the flow, the poem came together beautifully in the end.

At first I did not appreciate the abrupt break that occurs during the fifth line in the poem's first stanza. This pattern is once again repeated in the second stanza, to my great dismay. But over the years, I've come to appreciate the abruptness because it perfectly illustrates the poem's main point subconsciously. When we choose to interfere in the plan that God has for us, we bring an abrupt end to His lofty aspirations for our lives. If we also fail to listen to God's voice amidst the trails through which He wishes to mold us and bring us back to His path, we'll again experience the sudden jolt of hopes breaking. But only when we surrender, yield our will, and take His hand can He complete the song He had begun writing in our hearts. This is the kind of flexibility we're called to have.