Cast Off Chains and Dance

Father, we are broken and bound by corruptible flesh and daunting circumstances.  This morning as I offer the full of me to You I find that You alone are life’s true sustainable force.

You alone hold all things together.  You alone are constantly near to the brokenhearted.  And as my wife and I go through another season of hospitalization, You alone are enough for the heart that struggles and suffers.

Even as anger threatens to peel away my peace, even as frustration stirs my quietness, You alone are bringing me back to Your gentle, holy, comforting place.

You alone hold me together.  Hold me together now.

As I walk these halls and feel like so isolated by this new struggle, open my eyes to the countless ones around me who struggle and need hope.  Reawaken the joy in me that too easily sleeps through days like these.  Make me an instrument of Your glory (I laugh because that’s not a phrase I easily adopt!), so that I might clearly sound Your goodness and comfort and hope into other hurting souls.

Thank You that You have brought me from death to life in You.  Bring all good things to full recovery that this life may be lived with the knowledge that even the darkest moments are full of Your light.

Away with this dirge, and in with the happy songs.  Let them pour from me.  Let me not be content to sing the blues but instead, make my song sound like the very grace and mercy You’ve poured into me.

And all of this is to Your glory, my King.  Praise and honor to You forever!  You have made me proof that struggle does not have to plaster us to a filthy floor of sorrows.  You have lifted my mind and I am free to cast off chains and dance.

Finding God’s Spot For Me In a World of Angry Words

Good morning, Father.

This seems like such an angry world at times.  People are mad about things someone said, the way they said it, perceived slights and downright dumb mistakes and…

Where is our peace?

How do I walk closer, tighter, nearer to You today so that I may walk through these controversies just as you would have me to do.

It is so enticing at times to throw my opinion into the mix.  Especially when it comes to stuff regarding You and Your people and how we do this walk with You.  I get Your reminder regularly that You don’t need me to defend You.  Help me to have the sense to remember that even in my weakest moments.

So, I pray that I would not walk INTO controversy, or AWAY FROM controversy, but simply be square where You put me.  Mouth only engaged in a manner that would be helpful.

When I perceive others are slighting me, remind me to pray for them in their hurt and emptiness.

When I want to engage with the controversial – political, faith, or otherwise – may my response bless You and those who hear.  Keep me silent to a the degree that my words mean something.  I have spent plenty of days being a blathering idiot, now make me a listener and a wise contributor.

And I start by listening to You.  Here I am, Lord, here I am…

Ugh.

Ugh.

A groan before the waking.  Lord, as I put my prayer thoughts into the words of this journal, I realize I don’t always have enough words.  I don’t always have the right way of expressing myself, and frankly sometimes there is such a cacophony of words in my mind I don’t know where to start.  So today, I start with “ugh”.

I like the listening part of this prayer – at times it seems so much easier than the journaling.  There, I can just listen and soak in Your words and pour it all into worship.

Here, I confront the part of me that needs expression.  You instruct us to tell You what we need, then lift words of praise.  That seems to be evident in the Psalms as well.  But today, even though the praise is no struggle, the grabbing hold of what I need is vexing at best.  Ugh.

So I lift up hands to You.  I lay my pride bare before You.  I confess the sadness that has enveloped my heart in these days missing my grandkids.  I think about how I may have spoken one sentence too much on occasion recently.  I realize the innocent error that I made, with intent to welcome, but ended up making an error that I hope you masked in the ears of the one I was talking to!  Ugh.

These “ugh” prayers have such importance because I know that the enemy wants me to live in the disaster zone and forsake moving along with You.  So I pour out the ugh, I wait for Your counsel, and I choose to move on with You.  Let’s walk.

Glory to You, all glory my King.  You alone are what my heart longs for; You alone are satisfaction when I hunger and thirst for better, deeper, stronger things.  Your words are my instructions.  Your whispers are my relief.  Your Spirit is my strength.  Your movements are greater and better than my haphazard twitches!

Beginning and End, Lamb of God, precious Savior, Lord and friend.  Father, I love You.  Let Your glory rise in me, let it rise in this community, let it rise across this earth.  May Your glory be made known to all.

Make me a blessing to others today.

Somebody Is Stalking Me

All this day is Yours, all within it; I will worship You throughout!

I breathe in, breathe out Your praise.  Every moment is a celebration of Your wonder and majesty.

I’m not often given to such celebratory statements, but today I must let Your glory paint my words and thoughts.  The enemy is stalking me heavily and inundating me with comments about my failures and his estimation of my worth.  But how can those things be remotely true if I am made and wanted by the God of all the universe?

Without Your songs on my lips, I tend towards funeral marches and dirges.  Without words of joy exclaiming Your great worth, my estimation of what is worthwhile plummets.

Thank You for reminding me of who I am today.  Thank You for reminding me that I am Yours.  Your graciousness and mercy are so much higher and greater than anything else.

Thank You for taking the reminders of my failures and turning them to lessons that build me stronger.

Thank You for encouraging me with YOUR Word when the word of the world leaves me bound to heartache.

Make me an encourager to others today.  Strip me of my need to speak negatively.  Drain me dry of complaints and fill me full with joy and peace and healing.  Let me overflow into the lives of all I meet.

In the depths, You found me.  All my praise goes out to You, lover of my soul, lifter of my heart, painter of my day and writer of my song.  You are good, You are worthy.

Let Your glory rise.  Let’s get this day rolling towards the better.  Give me the tools to defeat the enemy’s plots to kill, steal and destroy.  Let’s do this!

Abandoned To Joy

Good morning, Father.  Shake me alive, breathe life and joy and glory into my body.

Since I’m never 100% sure if I’m ready for what the day has in store, equip me now.  Etch Your words on my bones, fragrance my path with mercy and grace.

Just as You have given all Your Spirit and withheld nothing, let it glow through me, through my smile, through my words.

One of the struggles of my life has been with a negative attitude.  You’ve changed me so much, but there is still more work to be done.  Free me of the chains of negativity and build me into a man that stands strong and mighty in You.

I sense Your hands and the hands of angels on me as I pray this!  Thank You that You are so ready to meet me as we commune here together.  I listen, I submit, I abandon myself to joy and peace and confidence in You.

Glory to Your Name!  Let Your Glory rise, let it rise in me today.

More Than Awake: Alive

Good morning, Father!  What a great pleasure to have these quiet moments with You.

How can I be at my best for You today?  Keep me sharp!  Keep me fired up!  Keep my mind ablaze and my body strong.

As I’ve contemplated this last month at my new ministry venture, I am excited, optimistic, and admittedly overwhelmed.  I wonder…  are we really getting it?  Have I come close to grasping the great things You have set in motion?  Has this flurry of excitement and good-will blurred our focus to the deep and difficult things to which You’ve called us?

I understand Your power and Your provision more than I ever have in my life (though, admittedly, I have much to learn yet!).  Still, I know that You desire much of me so that I can grow stronger.  Weakness, I’m told, is good because it breeds trust in You.  But I’m also experiencing this heart-rending understanding that You didn’t give me these “talents” so that I would bury them in the ground.  Make me wiser, more discerning, so I will invest well.

Move me, move us, oh God!  I sense the atmospheric change…  Your winds are blowing…  the sky is right.  Things are shaking and moving.  The enemy will soon be on the run.  There is nothing that can hold back the powerful things You intend to do.  Form me here in these private moments for the powerful movements of the public moments.  Shape me here in these hours of forming so that I will be fit for the hours of action.

Train my ear to Your stillest, smallest of whispers so that I will be in tune with You when the noisy battle rages.

Sharpen my battle skills so that I’m so sharp and precise, my movements cut away only the things of the enemy.  Let no person be harmed…  this is a mission of saving graces, not murderous rage!

And yes…  yes… yes…  strengthen me in the area of tenderhearted kindness and mercy so that I may be more like You.  Firm up my resolve to speak truth and grace all in the same mouthful.

Rise up workers to walk along with me.  I will go it alone, but I prefer to go with many alongside.  Even now, ready the workers around me.  Fuel us for the mission.  Unite us with love and concern.  Let compassion rule our motives.  Let the clouds roll away and Your glory rise!  Yes!

Spark me now for the work of the day.  Keep me attentive and useful.  Hear my words of worship and adoration…  may they saturate all that I do.

Let Your glory rise.  Let it rise in me today, my Lord!

Our Odd Culture

Only You, Father.  Right now, right here, I lay it all down and declare I am Yours alone, and it’s all about You.

Now that I’ve made such a grandiose statement, I start to see the holes in it!  Fact is, I still withhold from You and threaten my own well being by supplanting Your perfect ways with mine.  Strangely, though, knowing that only gives me one more thing I can lay down before You in submission.  It’s like the exception that proves the rule!

Even my misguided attitudes and beliefs…  I lay them down before You.

My contentment to abide things unlike You…  I lay these down before You too.

My mind is abounding with the strange hypocrisies of this culture in which You’ve placed me.  Even the word “hypocrisy” is used hypocritically…  ain’t no group of people who are free of that charge!  We place our personal business into public forums and then rail accusatory comments when people “stick their nose into our business”.  Is that odd or what?

And yet You have taken people like us and brought renewal and new life that we can only find in You.  Oh that this will blossom today in the community You’ve given me to serve.  Let us rise up beyond our contradictions and be made full of Your grace and mercy and tenderhearted kindness.

Let Your love define us.

May we live in the authority to love and to bring wholeness and healing in Your Name.

Ah!  Name above all names…  beginning and end…  mighty God, everlasting Father…  You are able!  Your generosity in the face of our stinginess is astonishing.  Your faithfulness in the light of our dullness is unmatched.  What a powerful ally we have in You.  What a great and good and just Father, Maker, Master You are.

Let Your glory rise in many fresh ways today.  Let it rise in me, let it rise in this community.  Glory to You, my King!

Sitting At the Table vs. Standing in the Foyer

Father, today seems like the day to freshly figure out my surrender.

My whole being is welling up with the desire to be more/better given over to You.  I’m sensing the need to up the ante a bit (pardon the crude comparison!) when it comes to my walk with You.

Somedays I just wake up and realize I haven’t come close to enough…  I’m just not surrendered enough.

Even laying myself down at Your altar as a living sacrifice seems a bit disingenuous when I realize there are parts of my heart still reserved for me alone.  I want You sitting at my table, not merely standing in the foyer.

Take this pride – it has never served me well.  I understand that humility to You has never equalled humiliation.  I surrender my pride for Your better way.

Take this stubbornness – I’d like to blame this attribute on my dad, but in all honesty, I’ve earned its disgrace for myself by now.  It’s right that I stop seeing this as some sort of “family trait” joke and learn to surrender it to You afresh even now.  Enough is enough.

Take this lack of prayerfulness – I want more of You.  The more I learn to pray, the more I realize I want to be closer still.

Take this lack of knowledge of Your Word – I want to know more of You and the purposes of my story.  After years of searching and learning Your Word, I’ve realized there are not enough years to properly soak it in.  I want more!

Take this lack of concern – my what a painful thing to admit.  Just when I begin to think I do well at loving people, I find someone that I am not showing adequate mercy, grace or love.  I want my heart to burn for the lost as well as the follower.  Light the fires of my compassions so that I may love people more.

All this things, such painful things to contemplate.  But my Father, I want You alone at the head of my table.  Come in, come in, come in…

 

 

 

 

 

Dealing With the “Uns”

Aaaak.  Lord, I promised honesty in these journaled prayers, and today I am feeling unhooked, unhinged and unwell.  So I bring these “uns” to You for the thing You do so well.

Prevent me from whining!  Rather than affording me the ability to filter my words and interactions, change my heart.

Prevent me from slowing down.  I’m pretty certain that’s the enemy’s ploy.  Not that I don’t need my rest, but I at the end of the rest, I don’t want to rust!

Prevent me from losing one moment with You.  When the “uns” hit me upside the head, my heart generally follows.  Not today!  I refuse!  I want the full of You, and I want to enjoy the full privilege of knowing You in every moment.

And may I be so bold as to pray that you would hook me, hinge me and well me?!?!  That is, connect all the scattered thoughts of my mind, bring wholeness to my body, soul and mind, and settle me into the place of powerful servanthood where nothing stops or hinders what You are doing in me.

Let this be so for the glory of Your Name in this community.

While I certainly wish I could sneak some of the extraordinary things You are doing past the enemy’s glare, I know I cannot.  The stealer/killer/destroyer is on the prowl.  So for that I pray that You make me a BIG DOG with a BIG BITE that never allows the yipping of that little dog to slow me down.

Teach me fresh from Your Word today.  Speak to me.  Counsel me.  Shine Your light on the way You have prepared for me.

And let it all be to Your glory, my risen Lord and Savior and friend.  You are all I want, take all I am.  Let it be so.

The Laying Downs and Rising Ups

I lay me down, I’m not my own…

Father, I bring You all my frustrations, aggravations, displacements and discombobulations.  I lay them down.  You always know what to do with them.

Father, I bring You my pride and self-assuredness, my certainty and my whims and prejudices.  I lay them down.  You always have a plan for them as well.

Lord, I bring You my reservations and hesitations and all the holding-back and uncertainty that I find in me.  I lay them down.  Do Your beautiful God-work on them.

Savior, I bring all my un-repented flaws and foibles and even the downright sinfulness that still lurks in dark corners of me.  I lay them all down.  I trust Your promises, they always prove true and worthy.

I lay me down, I’m not my own.  I am Yours.  This day is Yours – You made it.  How can I serve You in it?

I am so grateful for the Ephesians 2:10 reminder that I’m a part of something much bigger, brighter, all-encompassing and beautiful than anything I can come up with on my own.  I lay me down to Your purposes for me.

Let Your big, beautiful, adorable, awe-inspiring glory rise…  let it rise in me today, let it rise in this city.