Prayer-from a place unknown

Father God

How did I get here? Just a year ago everything felt so safe and secure and cosy. I had my school friends, my best friend beside me, my youth group there week in week out, the world felt small and manageable. I felt optimistic and content. I looked into the future with starry eyes and a hopeful heart. 

But you weren't content with my heart. There were things you wanted to show me that I couldn't see if I stayed in the warm cocoon. So step by step you took me further from the land of familiar until now I find myself to have wondered so far that I couldn't even return if I wanted to. 

Somewhere along the way you've changed the desires and longings of my heart, you've started to break away the layers of sin and self that were suffocating me, and my knees have felt weak and I've crumbled in new humility. 

Father I look around and everything is foreign. Without realising, I find myself in a place where I cannot recognise a single thing. Everything I knew is gone now, left a thousand steps behind. The only thing that keeps me going is you- the fact that you're holding my hand and leading me home, that somehow amidst everything you have a purpose. That these steps aren't just arbitrary and meaningless. But that in everything you are drawing me closer to yourself and conforming me to the image of your perfect son.

Do I miss them? Do I miss walking alongside them? So much my Lord. And seeing them continue to grow makes me realise how great you are but also how far the distance between us has grown.

I can't tell if I've progressed or just gone backwards, but when I look-all I know is that everything is different now. I need you now more than ever, because when everything else I have known has gone, you are all I know-and Lord, I praise you because you are so beautiful.

A prayer-In silent surrender

Father God,

I had no idea it would be this hard, that it would hurt this much, that surrender to you would make me feel so afraid and unsettled and lost. When I look back to the past- my friends, experiences, joys...I feel a bit like it was a time long lost and past, and that I was a completely different person. I can't explain how or why, but I just feel so...so...different now. I feel like so many of the bits and pieces that defined who I was are gone now. I feel like the world is gushing around me yet inwardly I am still, and weak, and broken, and you are there, and you are calling me to trust you. I want to. I want to reach out and take your hand...but...

God I'm afraid. I'm scared what that will look like, I'm scared I won't be strong enough to follow you and do the things you tell me to do, I'm scared that everything will be unfamiliar, and that you'll take me to unknown places where you're the only one I know and who knows me, I'm scared that I won't be able to stand against the lies of satan, I'm scared that the waves of this world will crush me and that I will fall and sin and turn against you. I'm scared to let go of all the people I love. I'm scared of wanting things or relationships...for they can easily be taken from me just as you gave them to me.

Yet...I know that the far scarier thing is to be wise in my own eyes, for this will only lead to destruction. Where could be a safer place than in the shadow of your wings? If my life is now hidden in Christ, there should be no need to fear. Please give me the strength to drink whatever cup you place before me, because somewhere in my heart, I know and believe that you know best, that you are good, trustworthy, faithful, mighty. That you make all things work together for my good, that your love endures forever, that you want to give me fullness of joy, peace, hope and ultimately eternal life-for this was always your will.

There's no turning back now, I can't go backwards to my old ways, to my old self, to the ways I used to do things and think with my naivety and care-freeness. I can't go back because I've let go of those former things, joys.

So my question is-what now? Where to from here? I know you will reveal things in your perfect timing, but in the time being-grant me patience and faith to look to and hope for things still unseen. Lord, surrender is lonely. Thankyou that you, of all people, know and can empathise with this. For in the garden of Gethsemane, even your bestest friends left your side, and soon the Father would forsake you. Thankyou that Jesus endured a horrible separation from the Father that I will never have to endure. Thankyou that Jesus bore a loneliness in the grave that I will never know because of your great, great love for me. Thankyou that no matter how alone I feel where you call me to walk, I will never be alone because by the blood of Christ you have poured out your love into my heart so that you are always always with me.

You have searched me, Lord,
    and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
    you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
    you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
    you, Lord, know it completely.
You hem me in behind and before,
    and you lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
    too lofty for me to attain.

Where can I go from your Spirit?
    Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
    your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
    and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
    the night will shine like the day,
    for darkness is as light to you.

For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts,[a] God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
    they would outnumber the grains of sand—
    when I awake, I am still with you.

If only you, God, would slay the wicked!
    Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
They speak of you with evil intent;
    your adversaries misuse your name.
Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord,
    and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
I have nothing but hatred for them;
    I count them my enemies.
Search me, God, and know my heart;
    test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting.

-Psalm 139

...My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.