joy

i find these things elusive: love, peace, joy, rest, affection. Lord, please hear me tonight as i try not to complain too much. i know i'm a broken record. please don't get tired of me too quickly...

amen

mirrors

Lord

when the time comes, remind me that i prayed this prayer: make me humble.

i belong to You; i'm pledged to You. i fail most of the time; i'm inadequate for this task of living life well; i'm not a good Lover. please remind me that i prayed this prayer, when the time comes. help me listen carefully for Your whisper.

please make me a good mirror; please work in her heart and eyes, so that she can make good decisions about her own character and personality. please help her make good decisions about our relationship.

amen

i need Your help. i can't just think this through and fix it like that. i need You. please help me...

rest

Father,

please teach me how, and when, and why to rest.

amen

You're sort of like a janitor.

Father

please bless Valerie with clarity of mind and the emotional energy she needs to make this day a good one.

amen

Jesus Christ, my Lord, LORD of all, please hear me.

there is nothing i want more, than Your will. i'm not very good at discerning it, perhaps, which is why i'm praying now. that, and we need Your miracles. do You still do that kind of thing??

my past and present and future with Valerie are all at stake. if this matters to You, please help... or if there's something else i should be seeking, then please point it out to me somehow.

i'm waiting on You, and doing what i can in the meantime. if i need to wait, please tell me to wait. if i need to keep hacking away at this monster, then please strengthen and encourage me inwardly. if i should be cutting lines and dumping cargo and bailing, then please give me a sign. help me to think clearly and guide my emotions. help me to do what You want. i'm after Your heart; my will is Yours to shape. my goal and my method are Yours. my whole life belongs to You, God. i am Yours.

i am Yours... save me...

amen.

faith

i feel sorry for so-called "faith-healers" most of the time, God; sometimes i'm even amused by them. but this is a serious matter, and suddenly i have neither laughter nor pity. i need Your help.

please... if her faith is well-placed, then help me place mine, as well. i know my life is a very small, temporary thing; i know my world is only the tiniest speck compared to Your world; but i also believe that You care about my world, genuinely and deeply.

please answer my prayers somehow... please be with me. please be with us. please be at work in us. please give me what i need to live right; please make me wise in this situation. please guide me in this relationship. please guide my life.

in Christ's merciful name
amen

help

Father,

please reassure me somehow, or strengthen me, or something... let me know that this will end well. please let me know that Your will is being accomplished somehow. please help me.

in Christ's saving name
amen

Mondays

Lord,

be Lord of my heart as well, and teach me to serve and honor You with my heart.

amen

murmurs of an ontological absurdity

God,

for a moment, i felt i should change the name of this blog to something more accurate. but then i realized that being a crappy doxologist doesn't make me not one.

if i had died on July 7th, would i have gone to relationship hell? or perhaps there's a relationship purgatory. that would be ironic, too, if the judge who would decide my final destiny was the same person i wronged. but i guess that's the way it really is, with heaven and hell... but the extra irony is that in order to get into relationship heaven, you have to have a good relationship with the judge of your relationship with the judge.

that sucks if you died while violating that relationship, because the judge is very biased, and you most likely go to hell.

but for some reason i got put sort of on the fence between purgatory and heaven. that's an awkward place to be, as You probly know, and i'm wondering if maybe You can help me get off of it. maybe You can speak to the judge for me, even... please?

i don't want to be on probation, and i don't want my right actions/choices to be cheapened by being counted as penance instead of good fruit. i don't want to be defined by only my actions. i don't want to have the second-best relationship of my life, as a result of my ruining the first-best one i 'could have' had.

it's true that i have ruined. but it's also true that You have redeemed, and that should effing count for something. i realize that we cannot be as loving or forgiving or redeeming or understanding as You, God, but please, please let us just barely touch the hem. even then we would be healed. just a quick touch. just Your back, as You pass. just have Your shadow pass over us.

Father God, please redeem where i have ruined. and please don't hold back.

amen

submission

Lord,

i submit to You my heart & mind, not as a servant seeking to obey, but as a fallen, ruined man seeking to be restored. i seek healing; i seek a cure for anger, a cure for arrogance, a cure for sloth.

would it be too much to ask, for some sign that these struggles are Your doing? ...or if not, then at least time-tested and God-approved? life is only becoming harder and more complex. i finish one task, only to be given three more.

i've pledged myself to You in obedience, and now You're working me to death. through death unto abundant life, i hope. please give me a sign that this is Your path; smile on me. please.

renew my heart.

thank You for the blessing that Valerie is to me, in many ways. help me receive her. help me to bless her, tangibly... visibly. Lord help me love her truly, deeply, wholly, consistently. let my love be made pure and strong and effective.

i am still Yours. save me.

amen

for the church

Father, please bless Your church with gifted leadership... and bless Valerie's life with wise choices and opportunities to please You.

amen

You would.

i see it now. You're doing it on purpose. You know exactly how much i don't depend on You, and exactly how much i depend on me, and You don't like it. You see how mechanical & methodical i am, and You're doing this just to throw me off.

...which means that my "i'm completely freaking out right now" is exactly the response You want.

sometimes i dislike You. right now i think i would rather just disbelieve that it's actually You doing anything to me at all. that way i have no responsibility in the matter, and i don't have to dislike You.

but i have no choice now except to come running to You, begging for mercy. i'm like Valerie being tickled. "eleison! eleison!!!"

well. perhaps You've got me right where You want me. somehow, that isn't encouraging at all.

please help.

amen

identity

Father,

please remind me of who i am.

amen

illumination

Lord,

i am ready to follow You. i'm sure You are aware of how much harder it is to make decisions on my own, as opposed to simply following Your orders. help me; please help me. give me what i need to live right, whatever that is.

i am Yours. save me.

i am not You

Holy Spirit, please touch Valerie's heart, and whisper to her. i rely on You for the health and meaning of every good thing in my life. i release to You any responsibility i've been unwisely keeping to myself; by all means, give me more and more work to do, God, but those things that only You can do, please take them and do beautiful things.

thank You for hearing me, and for not giving up on me. for loving me. please don't give up on us; please bless Valerie deeply.

amen

grace

Lord God,

i don't want to even begin to imagine what my life would be like, had You never claimed it... or had Your claim somehow been revoked at some point. "the boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places." i am blessed beyond what i am capable of realizing.

Your blessings have come in many different ways. sometimes You bless me by convicting me, with a heavy hand; other times, by shaping my thoughts and values to better reflect Yours. sometimes, by giving me the opportunity to bless others; other times, by surrounding me with generous, loving people.

some times You have blessed me by forcibly turning me away from bad to good; other times, from good to better! some times You have blessed me by ruining me; other times, by redeeming the ruin i have wrought myself.

i am blessed when i obey You; i am blessed when i don't, even if it's in different ways. i can't seem to escape You.

in Valerie, and in my relationship with her, and in her relationship with You, i find all of these kinds of blessings, and more. even considering only the blessings that have come to me through her, or through my relationship with her, i cannot thank You enough. but i'm going to act as though i can. so i thank You now, for her mind, for her heart, for her spirit... for her as a whole person. and for the incredible joy of this intimate relationship with her.

may she be blessed as i have been, and may You be pleased by what we do with what you have given us.

amen

God

i need help. please help me.

amen

trials

Lord,

i'm experiencing victories; i'm more and more vulnerable to You and Your touch as the days go by, as trials come and i am put to the test over and over again. You know i'm grateful.

but i am tired of being attacked. i am tired of these memories, these images, these appetites, these obsessions. i am growing confident in battle, but i am so tired of fighting. i have progress but not peace. i have healing but i'm still in pain. how long will i be suffering this way?

why can my life not be wholly new? why can You not simply wipe clean my heart and mind, and make me innocent and naive again? this thorn is alive; it twists and digs, and i pull it out and toss it away, but it finds me again... and i immediately tear it out, in obedience to you, yet it returns.

please help me...

amen

abundantly

Spirit,

please bear good fruit in me abundantly. help me be patient, gentle, kind, loving. i want to love like you do. thank you for hearing me; thank you for saving me. please don't leave me unfinished. please don't leave this, us, unfinished. Lord, we are Yours.

amen.