Prayer for Solace and Rediscovery

THIS is a prayer for anyone who seeks comfort, consolation and connection with themselves through what only God may give:

Gracious God of Heavens and Earth,

I break open before you, the needs of one who is betwixt and between, your servant: me. I do adore you for all you are and all that you have done — your greatness over all creation and your goodness in all of life. But I also wonder if you can be more and do more in this circumstance of my life.

I confess right now, my Father and my God, that I do feel the lack of one who is magnetically drawn to worship idols. I could list dozens of sources that regularly compete for attention — every single one vagrant of any real worth, and I know it! I look and I look and I look, and because I have nothing, it is only in you that I find. It is so unnatural to look to you — an invisible God — for the help I need, but I know now, as I remind myself, that you are the only help over the face of the world of my existence. Yet, because all I have is you, all I want is a help that would come immediately — and that, in my experience, is not commonly the help you provide.

There is a lack in my soul right now that only you might know, that only you might address, that only you might fix. But your fixes are long-term. You do not brush the desires away to be forfeited by a simple pleasure. There is a gap in my purpose that seems so interminably appended to my being. I feel estranged to this period in my life and even to the purpose you have apparently called me to. I confess this in your Presence knowing that you have every good thing to help me. How am I supposed to help others when I feel so inadequate for helping myself? Yet, in simply acknowledging my lack, there you are! — you are so ready to help. But can I be satisfied in your help? Can I have the temerity to stand before you and say such things?

Be gracious to me, Lord, and show me a sign, that you value me both for whom I am and for what capacity I have. Give me a sign that you have called me, and be patient with me for asking, I ask. Help me to know that I am called, even, as I contemplate my specious aridity; this season of soul vagrancy. And help me if this is an attack on the purity of grace you would otherwise give to me or bring to others through me. Lord, give me hope out of the present desolation; a purpose vanquished and never more to be found. Lord, forgive your servant this dip in contentment and be with me.

I ask this in Jesus’ precious name, always, AMEN.

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Some prayers are hard. Others are brave. And then some are just brutally honest. This is a combination of all three.

Prayers expressed in honesty, steeped in courage, are hard prayers to pray. Hard prayers are the prayers God loves most.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.