My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that, if I do this, You will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust You always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for You are ever with me, and Your will never leave me to face my perils alone.

Thomas Merton (1915 -1968)
Was a writer, mystic and Trappist monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky and is widely recognized as an important 20th century Catholic mystic and thinker. He wrote more than 70 books including his best-selling autobiography “The Seven Storey Mountain.” He was deeply interested in social justice issues including the civil rights movement and nuclear arms race.

One of the things I find most appealing about this prayer is Merton’s humility in admitting he really doesn’t know what he is doing or is supposed to do – “the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.” How true that feels in my/our own lives. We try to do our best and stumble through never knowing unless in hindsight that the choice we made was the right one. This prayer reminds me very much of one by St. Francis de Sales that was posted on September 21 https://sacredgate.wordpress.com/2013/09/22/st-francis-de-sales/
in which he says:
I can do nothing alone; my own will,
however hard I exert it, does not suffice;
my own plans, however astutely and systematically devised, all fail.
Whether we are living in Switzerland in the 16th century or in Kentucky in the 20th, it seems the challenges of living a spiritual life do not change over the centuries. We are all in the same classroom trying to learn the same lessons.