And here’s the prayer I have in my heart about any and all of my dreams, on everything that I have on my hearts that I know needs to be surrender to God's purifying power. It is based on Hosea, chapter 2. Hosea is one of my favorite books, because it speaks to my often “double-minded” heart, and helps me redirect my heart’s desire towards God, the source of all goodness.
Lord, whenever my desires or my plans have become an idol, whenever I've come to worship Your gifts more than I worship You, whenever I've become self-centered and self-absorbed, please do to me according to Your will. Strip me naked. Expose me, like the day I was born. Reveal to me the wrongness of my desires.
Do not have mercy of the children of idolatry (MY plans which are not according to YOUR will), but destroy all the works of MY hands, so that I'll come to love the works of YOUR hands working in me and through me.
If I've gone after lovers and believed that THEY give me my bread and my water, please do whatever it takes to bring me back to You. Hedge up my way with thorns, And wall me in, So that I cannot find my paths. When I chase my lovers, may I never overtake them. When I seek them, may I never find them. May I always recognize that it's YOU who gives me grain, new wine, and oil.
Take back Your wool and Your linen, so that I will come to know I'm naked in Your presence, that You see me just as I am, and do not let me become self-deceived. Uncover my lewdness, my lusts, the vain desires of my flesh, so that I will not call good what You don't call good. Cause all my worldly and ungodly mirth to cease, do not allow me to feast on what's not heavenly. Destroy my vines and my fig trees, Of which I had said, ‘These are my wages that my lovers have given me.' Punish me with Your righteous judgments, for allowing my heart to be filled with other gods, other baals.
May I recognize no other God but You. May I especially free from the love of Self as a god, for you will not share Your throne with any man. May I have a heart to destroy all the earrings and jewelry, the "adornments" of idolatry, which came to me when I forgot You.
And then, oh Lord, allure me, attract me, bring me into the wilderness, like you led John the Baptist, like you led Jesus, and from that place of being stripped of all distractions, speak comfort to me.
For I know in that place of restored fellowship, You give me Your vineyards, And the Valley of Achor as a door of hope; I will sing there, As in the days of my youth, As in the day when I came up from the land of Egypt.
“And it shall be, in that day,” You have said, I will call You Husband, And no longer call You ‘My Master,’ and I will know you as Abba, Father, and I will know you as Abba, Father, and I will be a spotless bride for Your Son.
No comments:
Post a Comment