Month: May 2017

Lord, I am in utter dependence upon you. I am unable even to draw breath without your grace. How much less am I able to do so comfortably, unless conscious of your favor upon me. This does not diminish from the nobility of what I was created to do. Rather, it hints at its imminent fulfillment. It means I am becoming more aware of the true nature of this universe, and how it works. For, even to begin with, it is in you that all things consist.

Let me rest in this dependence, God. Let me become so enthralled with your glory that I am unable even to see the distractions of this world. I have been so foolish in the past. Allow me to see, with new spiritual eyes, the goodness and compassion that you have as a father. Allow me to see that this is your nature. Allow me to see you as the father of the prodigal — the parent who leaves (running!) as I return from a distance, and who races out to meet me, and sweeps me up in his arms, and who offers me all that you have, without condition. I ask you to allow me this because it is only by your power that human beings are capable of desiring something that is so contrary to the only life they have ever known…and I am so very human.

Let peace like a river overwhelm me this day.

Jesus, you are my center today. I come back to this truth, and I dwell there. I dwell and abide here and now in this place of absolute dependence and absolute trust. I may not be able to actually trust in full, but I give you all of myself that I have command over, and I ask you to do what only you can do with the rest.

I just pull my attention and my affections back right now from everywhere else in my world, and I focus them all on you. Help me to do this consistently, Lord. Unless you build the house…unless you (love) dwells at the core of every effort and every relationship…it is all in vain. You are the source, the life giver, the healer, the comforter, the giver of encouragements, the keeper of promises. You are the only hope I have. Help me to quietly and peacefully remember that, always.

Jesus, you are the source of everything. Everything in the universe is held together by the same power that raised you from the dead…the same power that works in me; the power that makes me even able to want to do your will. Before I knew you, I had no sense of the pure and perfect love that God is. Now that I know, help me never to forget it! Because I did forget once…and I never want to walk down that path again. I would’ve died there, but for your grace which followed me, and hovered over me, and then picked me up and restored me once I had been worn all the way down to nothing by the sin and the shame.

Jesus, I choose to focus as purely on you as I have the ability to do, and I rely on you for the rest. There is still much in me that is lacking, but I know that you will be faithful to complete the work that you have started.

My flesh is afraid, though, as it dies. My mind is a tangle of bloody half-chopped-off tentacles, striving and straining to grab onto what they think will keep them safe. Let it all fall away now as I focus on the One who created time. You have promised, and you are not like a human; lying is not something that you have the capacity to do. Why are you worried, oh my soul? Look at who is here with you! It is Jesus, the very God of the universe! Lay yourself to rest in His arms. Be not overwhelmed with the fear and the sorrow. The kingdom is being born in you, and it hurts, I know, but take heart and know that your Redeemer lives, and He is on your side against all that would destroy you. Nothing can separate you from His love. Know that.

Jesus, I find myself terrified at the thought that another human being could have the ability to make me feel alive like never before. This terror exists because I have known what it is to have found that kind of happiness in this world, and then to experience the pain of losing it. There is no other pain quite like this kind of living death. As a consequence, I am wanting only to find that kind of love in you, the only true source of lasting fulfillment. I am wanting to only find it there, but then here comes my actual human heart, deciding things on its own…

But, Jesus, you said “It is not good that man should be alone.” And you said this about a man who had full access to enjoy fellowship and communion with you, yourself, at all times, at a time before this access was broken through the Fall. Does this not clearly indicate that there is, in fact, a type of loneliness that is a part of even the fully regenerated human condition? And doesn’t this story tell us that it is your heart’s desire to see this need met by providing a perfectly suited companion to each of us?

But, Lord, I am so scared. I ask you to comfort me. I ask you to guide me, and to give me the strength and the wisdom to submit to your guidance in all things. All things, Lord. Let me not succumb to the enemy’s whispering promises of satisfaction through compromise. Let me be only a bastion of humble submission and peace. Let me adhere only to you as my absolute source of peace and security. I ask you to heal the parts of my soul that have been wounded in this specific way. The wounds, they cause me to have a particular type of desperation for human relationship…a type of desperation that can only be legitimately directed towards your love, Jesus. Everything else must come second. You must be the first and the last, by virtue of the pure and simple fact that you are the first and the last. So, God, please allow me the grace this day to line up with what is, that I may be properly able to receive your blessing in all its forms, no matter what you have decided that will look like.

Here and now, I choose to deliberately engage with the present moment by forgetting the things which are behind me, and pressing forward into the fabric and substance of everything you are doing in my life, Jesus. I choose you. Above and beyond all else, I choose you.

I lay aside everything which hinders me. All sin and distraction, I lay it down for t his one purpose only: that I may experience the quietness that is necessary to hear your voice. Your voice is everything to me now, Jesus. Help me to not be afraid. Help me to know you are love. Even the parts of me that are yet traumatized, and reacting in pain, seeing the present through that old, awful filter…help me to see and to know with everything in me that you are love. Help me to understand enough of what love is, that I might not be afraid any longer.

My words of thanks seem so small, and your wonderful gifts are so impossibly great, but thank you so much for what you are doing, Jesus. May I decrease, that you might increase. Amen.