02.01.16 A prayer of longing

Dear God,

My heart is so prone to wonder. So easily I fall in and out of love of idols. They capture my affections and consume my thoughts. Out of proportion I chase after them, they capture my fancy and my imagination. Whether it be food or a man, satan whispers their worth in my ear, 'bow down to them' he tells me. Blinded by what's in front of me I lose my whole hearted devotion to you. I dance with the world. 

But Lord I want to love you with all my heart, mind and soul. Only you are worthy of my worship. Only to you belongs all the praise forever. Lord will you still my wondering heart and bring me back to you? Will you crush these idols and altars, these meaningless longings and direct all my affections to you? For what goodness is there outside of you? None my Lord. Any other answer comes straight from the lips of the enemy. 

Lord give me a fixed gaze upon my saviour Jesus, and help me to throw off everything that hinders, my sin that so easily entangles. Help me to thirst after you and your word and righteousness and holiness. For to these I have been called and reborn to live for. Help me Lord for I am weak against the spiritual forces of evil but you have overcome satan and the world and sin and death. 

Thankyou that you are the only one who is Almighty and sovereign and God. Lord of lords and king of Kings. May my knees only bend at your name, the name of Jesus Christ. For he alone is worthy, the lamb who was slain for the sins of the world! Help me love you more!

"help me to know continually that there can be no true happiness, no fulfilling of thy purpose for me, apart from a life lived in and for the Son of thy love."

Deb

The first and second of February

The first:
Jesus you've completely changed my life. Since knowing you, you have turned my world completely upside down. I've spent most of my life without you and not knowing you, there are still so many things I need to learn. I feel the burden of not being raised in a Christian family. My thinking and heart have been warped and darkened by sin for so long. Your words and way of life are so foreign to me sometimes, even if I really want to follow, there are lies and tangles of sin deep in me that draw me back from you. Lord I don't know what to do, I can't even cling to myself because so many things about me are simply slipping. Help me to cling to you, the rock eternal. But you can make all things new. From my heart make me your new creation, created to be like Christ in true righteousness and holiness. 

The second:
I want to, but I simply cannot pretend that nothing happened. I cannot just slip back into things here and carry on business as usual. I just don't feel comfortable here anymore. I don't see things the way I used to. The people I loved are but an echo now. I can't go back. And I just want to stop and be still, but I'll need to move one day, otherwise I'll just float here in limbo unable to let go of the past and embrace the wonderful future God has in store for me. Why do I find it so hard to trust my Heavenly Father? Why do I struggle to believe that He is always good? Why do I think that he is not generous, loving or willing enough to shower me with blessing. I've told myself that he desires my hurt as an end in itself rather than the means to greater blessings.

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.

Prayer from 19 August-Lord give me your grace

Oh Father,

I come before you broken and lost and weak and hungry and confused and a fool and a sinner and ashamed and weary and burdened and tired and exhausted and at a loss. Where have you been oh Lord? I have missed your loving embrace, I have tried (with what little strength I have) to lift my eyes a little to you, but was met by silence. Thus I continued to lie, broken and estranged from you by the side of the road, on the wide road that leads to destruction. Tossed and pushed forward by the currents of this world, edging closer and closer to the grave and rotting away in my sin. Accused by satan and choked by guilt and shame. I no longer wanted the light, darkness was my closer friend. I could not bear to think of you who is holy and perfect and light and almighty. I wanted only to remain cut off from you-you were too majestic, I felt too hopeless, I felt more than halfway towards the darkness, my strength gone, how could I possibly seek you, to stand, to run in the opposite direction? God you know that I am but a breath-how can I love you when my heart is a stone?

The chains of sin and shame were shackled around me again…I was a slave again, I had forgotten your everlasting love. I had forgotten how you had set me free, I had forgotten your goodness. In my mind, satan had showed me only darkness and cold and alienation. I was convinced I was lost forever. I would read of your ‘unfailing love’, the psalms that commanded me to praise you were but a stumbling block describing a joy I did not have.

Oh Lord how I have forgotten!

·         Your will is not for me to be downcast, but to be filled with joy

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” John 10:10

·         I am not under the law, my failures and incompetence do not stand in the way anymore, because I stand in your grace

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.” Romans 8:1-2

·         It is not your will to be far from me, for us to be apart, but to be completely and intimately reconciled and present with me

“The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”). Matthew:1:23 

 “And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.” Romans 8:11

Finally, you have heard and answered my plea:

“Restore to me the joy of your salvation    and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.” Psalm 51:12

God I cannot and do not want to live without you by my side. I need you to fill me to the brim with your love and joy until I am overflowing-until your love is flooding into everything I do and say. If you do not, I will merely wonder aimlessly around this earth, wasting these days of precious life and cold and miserable, utterly empty and inclined to turn back towards my sinful ways. Give me your grace and word and power to obey, to follow, to learn to love. All I can do is ask this of you-I can do nothing else. Oh Lord please give me your grace, I have nothing.

Prayer from 14 June 2014

Dear God,

Thankyou for my eyes so that I can see,

thankyou for my glasses so that I can see clearer,

and thankyou for the Holy Spirit so that I can see Jesus.

"But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come."
John 16:13

Prayer from 29th May 2014

God I'm sooooo discouraged, my heart is so incredibly broken, it aches, it hurts so much God. It is so empty that a small gust of wind chills it to the core. It's throbbing in agony father. Nothing works, nothing fills, in desperation I indulge in the tangible things of this world which only scrape the hole deeper. It hurts so much God. How can I continue any longer in my day, how can I study, how can I think and live and breathe and face this burdensome world when I am dying from thirst? From where else can I draw energy from, from where can I be filled with life instead of crushed by death?  “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." (John 6:68 NIV)

I come God. Have mercy, let your grace overflow in me. I can do nothing without you- I desire nothing besides you. No step is worth taking unless you are with me, fully and wholly. "Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you." (Psalm 73:25 NIV)

My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit;
    a broken and contrite heart
    you, God, will not despise.
(Psalm 51:7)

*See corresponding previous post

Prayer from 25 March 2014

God, I want to be your servant like Peter.

 I want to give up everything to follow you, 

God I want to go to the edges of the earth with you. 

I want to know and experience your Holy Spirit like I've never before 

I want your hand to pick me up and take anywhere you want to. 

I want to be your witness God , and I want to witness you. 

I want front row seats, I want to be at the frontline of the battle where you are. 

Sure, I have nothing and I'm weak. 

But God I've never needed to be qualified anyway. 

I want you to show your glory and power and love through me.

What that might look like I have no idea. 

But whether I'm a hobo, a quadriplegic, a deaf or mute, 

a doctor or missionary, a mum or wife or single, hungry or cold, 

I know that if you are with me, holding my hand, 

that's exactly where I want to be. 

Nowhere could be any better.

24th March 2014

Writing out my prayers helps me communicate to God, but sometimes I'm on the train or something and I only have my phone. Scrolling through my "notes", I'm thinking I want to start posting up some of my prayers. Why? Although they're not addressed to you, I hope that somehow you might be encouraged, or that you can relate, or pray them with me as I pour out my heart to God. :) (keeping in mind that I am flawed and the way I view or relate to God is not perfect) these prayer-posts will have the date I wrote them as the title.

***

God there are so many inexpressible and indescribable yearnings in my heart. God, so you're not content with my character at the moment. Well me either! God I am waiting. Cut off every branch in me that bears no fruit. Knock down my walls and break the roots of sin in me. God I am willing and wide open for you to work in my life. I want to be just like Jesus, I hate that I'm ineffective for you, I hate that I'm selfish and proud and afraid. I hate that I see with my eyes and not with my faith, that i don't honour and respect my parents, that I don't spread your gospel, that my heart is stone. That I compare myself to others and not Jesus. I hate my laziness and my lack of self control. I hate my idolatry and meaningless chasing of things of the world. I hate that I seek approval from others and not you. From men and not my God. God there are a million and 1 other things that I'm not even aware of. You know. You see, God take me and heal me. I'm waiting Father, I'm ready. And perhaps I don't fully realise what I'm asking, but I don't care. please answer my prayer.

Always, despite our weakness.

Dear God,

I love you, but only sometimes :(

Give thanks to the God of heaven. 

His love endures forever. 

(Psalm 136:26 NIV)