TEACH ME YOUR WAY

Teach me your way,
how to walk beside you faithfully;
make me single-hearted, single-hearted, devoted to you, devoted to you.

1. Educate my intellect, fashion my ideals,
get inside of my emotions, walk among my dreams.

2. Take me to your cross of pain,
to your cross of glory,
where your power looks like weakness, good appears as bad.

3. Jesus, you can steer my life, alter my direction:
be the compass for my journey, navigate me home.

Yahweh, teach me your way, how to walk beside you faithfully, make me single-hearted in fearing your name. Psalm 86:11 (Jerusalem Bible) 1993. I had begun a song based on this psalm a couple of years earlier, guided by the NIV translation 'give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name'. It had never been finished. This time it was, starting the week I began as Worship/Music Co-ordinator at Golden Grove Lutheran Fellowship (in north-east Adelaide). It was helped by the Good News translation - 'teach me to serve you with complete devotion', which, combined with my love of the Everly Brothers song 'Devoted to you', gave me the last line of the chorus. The chorus was all I had for a while, both words and music. Then I had a tune for the verse. The words gradually took shape over several weeks. Family influence was more direct with this song than with some others. The jazzy influences are due to drumming son Thom starting his Jazz Performance degree that year. Dorothy suggested line two of verse two, and also proposed changing 'ways' back to 'way' in the title and chorus.

 

ALWS 29/5/24

In May 2023 we travelled to the Mentawai Islands in Indonesia, seeing work supported by Australian Lutheran World Service. Dorothy and I are Ambassadors for the ALWS programme, Lives You Touch. We are encouraging people to leave money in their will for the work of ALWS. We committed to leave a third of our will many years ago and hope many others can touch lives in this way.

Last year we visited churches in SA, Vic, Qld and WA with Jonathan & Julie Krause promoting the cause of ALWS.

Coming up soon:

* Nuriootpa (St Petri) Saturday June 22, 4 pm

To be confirmed:
Bordertown July 28,
Everton Park (Qld) August 17,
Canberra August 24 

Looking forward to seeing you at one of these events