Prayer in Self-Isolation

Lord,
I search for You though You are all around me.
I invite You into my heart even as You are there already.
I want to be open to You, yet I retreat into myself.
I need Your correction, but deny my error.
I seek Your will, but mine chafes at second place.
I want to love You, yet You remain a mystery.
I long to see You, but Your brilliance is blinding.
I desire Your teaching, but Your wisdom overwhelms me.
I seek to know You, but cannot fathom Your majesty.
I pray for peace yet respond with malice.
I read Your Word but understand so little.
I want to please You, but who can do anything for You that You cannot do with a thought.
I pray for Your healing yet my wounds are my greatest teacher.
I hope for salvation yet do not see that it is Your greatest desire for me.

Yet, when I finally stumble into the silence of prayer; when I humbly allow myself to be known by the One who’s always known me better than I know myself, The Presence that was always there, awakens my soul.
Your Presence, never hides. You wait with Your one desire to be accepted as the Love that You are.
I realize that the one thing that is not Yours is my freedom to chose where I give my love.

…and so, the journey begins as all journeys begin. First with a decision, and then with a step. The necessary step.
Without the step, the decision is no more than a thought; no more than an idea. Too easily it floats away as a dream that fades when we wake.
The journey is ours to travel yet the work is not ours to do. Ours is to put one foot in front of the other; to proceed with trust and to co-operate with Your leading.

Healing and redemption is Your work in us; it is the fruit of our journey, as the journey is our life.
Ours is to allow Your work to be done.
Ours is to be still and hear Your voice whisper to our hearts.
Ours is to see in ourselves that which we’d rather not see.
Ours is to humbly admit that, compared to You, we are nothing, and to accept that, in Your eyes, we are everything.
Ours is to allow Your work to be done in us that we may help others to allow Your work to be done in them.

Our worship, praise and prayer do nothing to magnify Your majesty. They provide nothing You need.
Their purpose is to open us to You so that we may enflesh Your love and be a living miracle on earth.
If we do not learn that loving others is the way to love and serve You, then we have learned nothing.

We pray for, “…Your Will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. We pray for signs and wonders.
We pray for peace as we continue to war; for an end to poverty as the rich get richer; for guidance as our minds rebel against where You would lead is.

Our prayer needs to be for the wisdom to discern Your Will and for the strength to complete it. Our prayer needs to be that we would be Your Will done on earth.

Our redemption and restoration are complete in You. Your promise of salvation is begun with our desire for it, and realized in our acceptance of it.

Our prayers for Your help in our healing and the healing of others is what Your heart yearns for. Your hope is our permission to allow Your work to be done in us.

“A broken and contrite heart You will not spurn” (Ps 51)