| Thank-You and forgive me. Thank-You for each day, and for the opportunity to walk on Your earth, breath Your air, eat Your food. Please forgive me for being presumptuous, ungrateful and for assuming that I am entitled to a portion of the bounty of your creation. Forgive me for skidding into the tar pit of self-pity with a focus on what I don’t have versus what I do have. As a child, I was encouraged to pay more attention in class, but now as an adult, I ask for the gift that would permit me to pay less attention to the trivial and to be more attentive to the weighty matters of the heart and of eternity. Many things that seem important today will not matter in 100 years, like the guy who cuts me off in traffic, or the person who doesn’t want to wait their turn in line. So teach me to number my days and remind me that I do not have to “win” arguments or have the last word. Let me lose myself in You by deferring to others, preferring anonymity, doing Your will and delivering hope as an opaque servant, invisible to the very people You have sent my way to help, the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. Never seeking recognition, but delighting in recognizing others. Develop in me a quiet, robust confidence of knowing who I am in You. It is my delight to please You. Lead me ever further down the path of obedience, joy and humility, thereby necessarily taking me further away from the chains of pride and arrogance. My heart is in Your hands, and I will be with You for eternity because you so loved the world that you gave Your only begotten Son so that whosoever believes in Jesus should not perish but have everlasting life. |