2022-12-23 A Prayer: Pain Meets Ideas

O Lord, merge, where some thought in infancy desires to come out and be cataloged; so grant us to honor and to know the spiritual advances paid for by predecessors, heroes of the faith. See us plainly appeal, while also eager to marry thought to doctrine. So grant us to go with some realm greater than ourselves, with untold tried and true meaning.

For we languish, despairing one day and then even-keeled another. Some chance explanations include the love of the brethren, or some piece of art observed or heard, or simple bravery to create and recreate a platform for faith-based engagement. We desire to engage this life with honesty about how zany and unreliable are our inner thoughts. We need not to deny this our inner keel, but allow for full dependence on Your expense report, Your sacrifice, Your healthsome doctrine.

It is a doctrine that knows impossibility, that is honest about where we once were and where we are today. It is a doctrine that knows the futility of relying upon our own steering and course-setting; we thrive post-panic because it was something of a junior-level experience with Your own Cross. We find our crosses, mindsets, self-doubt, things where we cannot long carry our own cross. And with the morning comes a long dreamy night of Work, You healing and You repatriating heavenly citizenship. Somewhere we moved on from the cries unanswered, and dwelt near to Your people, people of reassuring mind and similar doubts and despondencies.

Help us then to remember what our pride wants to brush aside. Help us then to encounter what our conceit wants to disregard. Help us then to live into days of joy and fellowship, peace in believing, as those who have turned a corner and who—lest we forget—are still dwelling in the wake of conversion and of heart-change. For You have so called us and equipped us, to rely on Your Gospel to carry the day. Help us, as those days bring us back to simple needs.

We pray all this in Your Name, Amen.