Prayer

Oh God, take my selfish heart. It wants so much evil and you want it to want so much good. It lusts for things it cannot have, forgets its blessings, turns from you and with a filthy mouth of forgetfulness wonders why it cannot have.

I want, I want, I want.

Without remembering all the gracious good gifts you poured upon me, I crave with a sick longing that can only be defined as cursed covetousness. 

I curse those who have more, disguising my words as jealous and envy when really I just feel hate.

Oh Lord, how is this the case? Am I not full of your spirit? Did you not inhabit my heart when I begged you, tears streaming down my cheeks, to come in?

Why, oh, why do I still hurt those I love with words of roughness and ill meaning. Sometimes it is not even what I planned to say but the sin slips skillfully out of my lips as if it had been crouching in the corner of my mouth simply waiting to spring.

I envy and I hurt and I hate and I want.

 Justify these things? I cannot at the end of the day. They are too real and too painful and my heart is too raw with regret as I remember, recall, refocus.

Forgive, oh, Father. These are the words that, as I bow before you on my knees, I must proclaim. For without your forgiveness dribbled upon my head as cleansing baptismal waters, I cannot – I will not -- ever live for you.

The more I discover about you, the more I see about myself. It is a sickening paradox, and yet the most wonderful thing I have ever encountered.

My old man shrivels in suffocation and shudders as he stutters that none of this is necessary and I could easily just drown my sorrows by burying them deep in my head.

But this cannot go on. I am near a breaking point. I am so so very sorry for sin that it’s driving me insane.

It is only with the glimpse of Christ’s welcoming arms that I keep pressing forward. Like Christian in Pilgrim’s Progress, having been freed of his burden, and yet with so many pitfalls and snares still to avoid.

I press on.

Hard though it may be.

Tears from my eyes,

Crying “Lord, forgive me.”