A Prayer: Scrupulous Honesty

Father,

When I come before You,

I always pay lip service

To how awesome You really are.

When I say it, I mean it—sort of.

I know it’s true, but I’ll have to admit

That what I’m really interested in is me.

I acknowledge Your sovereignty because

I want “things,” from You—lots of things.

I want You to bless me—

To make my life easier and, most of all,

To rubberstamp my will as Your own.

Nearly all of my prayers focus on

What You can do for me.

I’m interested in Your benevolence—

Not in getting to know You better.

That’s the truth, and I need to be honest.

I wish I were a better person than this.

I wish I had more character, but I don’t.

Admitting the truth embarrasses me,

But You know my heart and what I’m really like.

I need You to continue making changes in me.

Teach me to seek You for Yourself,

And not just what You can do for me.

Give me a heart to yearn for wisdom,

Rather than just Your generous hand.

Teach me to look beyond my limited world

To help meet the needs of others.

Give me a heart for someone other than myself.

I recognize my selfishness; it’s ever before me.

I also know that You are active in my life,

Changing me from the inside out,

Helping me to become a better child of Yours.

The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; Who can understand it? I the Lord search the heart. I test the mind, even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the results on his deeds. (Jeremiah 17:9-10)

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A Prayer: Waiting Patiently for God

Father,

You’ve brought my soul out of bondage—

Out of the shackles of my

Self-defeating behavior for a purpose,

Which is beyond my capacity to fathom.

In the blindness of my pain and distress,

Which have filled my days and nights,

I have implored You relentlessly,

Insisting that You ease my pain

And grant me the desires of my heart.

Regardless of my repeated complaints,

Which I’ve audaciously called prayers,

You have never relented—not even a little.

You have never blessed my demands

Nor allowed me to have my own way,

Regardless of my fervent and frequent requests.

Unmoved, You have just gone about the task

Of transforming my heart from the inside out,

Changing me at the core of my being,

Making me a far better version of myself

Than I have ever been or dreamed of being.

Now, as my distress and angst have abated

And my painful sorrows have relinquished,

For the first time I can look back

And be thankful that You understand me

Better than I understand myself.

Your plan is better than what I desired for myself.

As I come to fathom all that You have done,

I marvel at the changes You have orchestrated—

All to strengthen me and made me grateful.

Having no idea what’s in store for my future,

I gladly give You permission to finish

The work that You have begun in me.

Let my petty, whining nature become a memory—

A distant recollection of my childish ways—

As I seek Your will rather than dictating my own.

How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who announces peace and brings good news of happiness, who announces salvation, and says to Zion, “Your God reigns!” Listen! Your watchmen lift up their voices, they shout joyfully together; for they will see with their own eyes when the Lord restores Zion. Break forth, shout joyfully together, you waste places of Jerusalem; for the Lord has comforted His people, He has redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord has bared His holy arm in the sight of all the nations; that all the ends of the earth may see the salvation of our God. (Isaiah 52:7-10)

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A Prayer: God Deals with Obstinacy

Father,

I’m praying because I know I should,

Not because I really want to.

I can do things for myself.

I always have—always will.

I don’t need Your help—not really.

“Bring it on,” is my motto.

In my heart, this is how I feel—

At least, most of the time.

I’m not trying to hurt anybody,

But I don’t really trust anyone either—

Not even You, Lord, not even You.

As I grit my teeth obstinately,

In my arrogance I think, I can handle anything.

Then, You allow adversity to have reign over me.

Fighting You every step of the way,

I refuse to learn the lesson I am being taught.

My proud, headstrong attitude defines who I am.

At least, it is the way I have become.

Undaunted by my inflexibility,

You increase the pressure upon me,

And I wince at the discomfort,

But I will not yield—not yet.

I still have so much fight left in me.

I cannot submit; I will not submit.

Then, You double the pressure, redoubling it once more.

Finally, when I can stand no more,

I break—just a little and, in my bewildered distress,

I cry out imploringly, “Lord? What have I done?”

As if completely innocent, I ask, “Why is this happening?”

Revealing Your purpose, You allow me to recognize

Just how much my world required shaking.

Finally, coming to the end of my inflexibility,

I acknowledge what I should have earlier,

“Your will is my will, Lord. Do with me as You please.”

But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, or angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor thins to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:37-39)

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A Prayer: When God’s Answer Is “No”

Father,

For those who wait patiently for You,

For those who come to You for guidance,

Rather than taking matters into their own hands,

You promise that they will mount up with wings like eagles,

That they will run and not grow weary—

That they will walk and never faint.

In the depth of my despair, in my intense heartache,

Your promises seemed so remote,

So obscure, so meaningless and unattainable

That I was certain they were beyond my reach.

I never considered them to be real or tangible.

To me, they were nothing more than sappy, poetic words.

In my pain and heartache, all I wanted was relief,

Which at times was so intense I thought it would never end.

I begged You to answer my insistent demands,

Which You never did, adding to my distress.

I felt so unloved and abandoned—even by You,

Which magnified my pain tenfold, maybe twenty.

You did answer my prayers, but You just said “No.”

You loved me enough to prevent me form outcomes

That were clearly not in my best interest.

In my disquietude and short-sightedness,

I couldn’t understand or fathom Your will, but now I do.

Because I chose Your path instead of my willful self-destruction,

You have brought me to a higher plateau—

To a place where I am now capable

Of mounting up with wings like an eagle—

Just as You promised in Your Word.

Because You restore the years the locust have eaten,

I feel refreshed—invigorated with a determined resolve—

Which has increased my energy dramatically.

As my strength and faith continue to abound,

I feel empowered to run and not grow weary.

Now, I can willingly bow my knee and thank You

For caring for me enough to refuse my demands.

Do not fear, for I am with you; do not anxiously look about you, for I am you God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, surely, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand. (Isaiah 41:10-11)

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A Prayer: Abandoning My Hurtful Ways

Father,

You know how badly

I have been mistreated

By those who should have nurtured my welfare

But have done exactly the opposite,

Taking advantage of my trusting nature instead.

I’ve expressed my outrage and indignation

To You so often that I’ve lost count.

This affront has wounded me so deeply that—

Out of my pain—I know I have hurt others,

Which I’ve sought to justify but cannot.

I fear that I have become like those who have hurt me,

Injuring the innocent—just as I once was.

Father, I acknowledge that I have done this,

And I am becoming someone I don’t want to be.

I don’t want to be like my abusers,

But to be honest, I know I have been,

Despite my insistent denials that I have not.

Forgive me, Father. Heal my wounds,

And restore gladness to my troubled soul.

As a conscious act of contrition, I choose to renounce

My self-serving ways, which have been so destructive.

Despite my pain, anger, and disquietude,

I make a commitment to abandon my malice.

To ensure that I fulfill my resolution,

I will need Your strength and guidance.

Will You reach down and touch me?

Will You help me bridle my sharp tongue?

Will You keep my feet from stumbling?

Will You transform my wandering heart,

And maintain it close to You?

I need Your help now, Father.

Without it, my resolve will be short lived

Amounting to nothing more than empty words.

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. (Ephesians 4:30-32)

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A Prayer: Learning to Trust God

Father,

As the years progress,

I often hear people talk

About how much they trust You,

But their proclamations seem less sincere

Than the pronouncements of a fickle lover.

Lacking tangibility and depth,

Their affirmations, which flow mellifluously

From their self-serving mouths,

Have selfish and egotistical motives,

Which seem devoid of worthwhile substance.

Their loyalty has not been forged

By adversity and weathered by hardship.

Their trust seems shallow and juvenile,

Rather than strong, resilient, and steadfast.

Believing that whining and demanding

Will gain Your favor rather than being authentic,

They come before You with hearts

Which are petulant, peevish, and proud.

Lacking gratitude, they are arrogantly self-righteous.

I understand their perspective completely,

Having spent decades of my life

Coming before You in precisely

The same self-serving, self-centered way—

Never understanding, never conceding

That You know what is best for me.

I acknowledge my effrontery and selfishness.

I have foolishly thought that my way

Was better than Yours, but I have been wrong.

I have wanted my way, believing that

When You refused to grant it,

You were distant and detached—

Unloving, uncaring, rigid, and unconcerned.

How foolish I have been, Father, how foolish.

You do know what’s best for me,

Regardless of what that might be.

After years of perusing frivolity,

I now understand the error of my ways.

I wish I had recognized it sooner,

But I lacked the maturity to do so.

Now, as wisdom settles deep within me,

I bow me knee and acknowledge this truth:

You give and take away,

You give and take away,

You give and take away,

Blessed be Your name.

Seek the Lord while He may be found; Call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to the Lord and He will have compassion on him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are you ways My ways,” declares the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts higher than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:6-9)

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Looking Good Isn’t Being Good

Refer to STEP 5: I recognize the only way back to a productive life is exactly the way I came. I have to repair my relationship with God and make amends with everyone I have wronged along the way.

It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.

—Leo Tolstoy

We live in an era when Christianity has become a vestige of what it once was—trite, simplistic, and deeply dishonest. The richness, which once typified people of faith, has been replaced by Christian legalism and plastic faith that buckles under pressure. Looking good to one’s peers is more highly valued than doing the right thing.

Nearly everybody realizes this is true, but few are willing to be straightforward and admit it. By trying to maintain the illusion of “having it all together,” when nothing could be further from the truth, Christianity has lost its sense of direction in America, as millions of church-going people look hypocritical to those who operate from a secular mindset. Secularists, refusing to be fundamentally dishonest themselves, have come to dismiss Christianity as irrelevant.

Those of us who have been wounded by the church have a similar mindset. We don’t think the religious leaders in our lives are hypocritical; we know it. Being embittered by our experience, many who have been wounded—people like you and me—have chosen to pursue our lives knowing that God is real but remaining aloof from seeking His counsel. We are still willing to give Him a nod of the head, but we have stopped bending our knees in submission to Him as we once did.

This is why recovery is critical for wounded believers like us. As part of our recovery, we know the value of rigorous honesty, which was once an integral part of Christianity instead of hypocritical legalism. We know that without being forthright, especially about our shortcomings, we will remain hopelessly mired in mediocrity.

This is why we have more to offer than those who look good on the outside but have marginal character qualities on the inside. God needs tough people; and with all you’ve been through, you qualify to be one of them. The question is, will you be?

Now flee from youthful lusts, and pursue after righteousness, faith, love and peace, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. (II Timothy 2:22)

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