A Prayer of Hope

Abba, you see my heart, broken and beaten and ugly and chasing after the wrong things, and You still love me and You still put Your arms out wide for me, for my adulterous heart. Place in me a heart of flesh and remove this heart of stone, because I’m sick of it and I want nothing but You, LORD. You are the God of unfailing love, of unfailing redemption, of unfailing faithfulness. You are the God of Jacob and Isaac and Moses and Abraham and David and Daniel and Samuel and all the greats, Lord… and You are MY God. You are the most wonderful thing to ever happen to me, the most amazing part of my life that I long to share with others, Lord. You save me again and again, and You call me back to you ever so gently as I fight and fuss and run away from You. You never walk away from me, LORD, but instead stay there, calling me back Home even after I have disgraced Your name. and You LOVE ME. that is what still blows my mind. Is that You STILL LOVE ME. Even after all my failures and shortcomings and after I break Your heart again and again, Lord…. You still love me. You still care, and You still want to have a major place in my life. It’s practically unbelievable, how You do it. WHY You do it. It blows my mind. And yet it’s true… it’s still true, and it’s still so real. So real that I can feel it. It’s not just having faith in it anymore, it’s not just believing… but Dad, it’s really feeling it. 

Dad, I’m sorry that I continually let You down. and that I constantly break Your heart, and that I do nothing to stop others from breaking it. And I’m sorry, so sorry, for all the times I’ve failed You. I’m sorry for all the times I’ve thought of Scripture and had a way out of sinning, yet I still sinned just for my own selfish gain… and looking back, it isn’t even a gain most of the time, but instead it hurts You, and others around me, and me, and people I don’t even know yet. And why God, why do I continue to do those things? 

“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! ” – Romans 7:15-25

God, I am such a child. I am such a selfish little girl. I do things that I know won’t make you proud, and I do things that I know will break your heart because they even break mine while I’m doing them. I do things that I hate to do, that I know are wrong to do, that I wish I would never, ever do again, Lord. I do things that make me hate myself in the moment. That make me continue to hate my actions, my feelings, etc. 

Abba Father, there are things that I need to confess to my brothers and sisters before they seriously take over my life. I can feel their grip getting tighter, Lord. Give me the strength, and the courage to just freaking say the things that need to be said. Help me to not be such a baby about the things in my life that I need help and accountability for. Help me to beat away the intimidation that comes when I finally get the courage, that intimidation that says “they’ll judge you” and “they’re not going to be your friends anymore.” Because Lord, I know it’s not true, but it’s just the possibility of it being true. 

I love You, so much. And You always save me, again and again. You save me. Keep holding me, Lord…. something big is about to happen.