When I read that my church's youth was committing to praying for something specific each day for the next thirty days, I wanted to join in. Day Number One's prayer asked that each of our hearts be changed and renewed during the thirty-day commitment. While this prayer was beautiful and legitimate, something inside me felt a single misgiving---for me personally---about that one-lined request.
It was too vague.
Sometimes vague prayers are precisely the ones we need to pray. Sometimes the only words we can breathe forth are:
"God, please help."
"Be with me."
"Strengthen us."
"I don't know what to do anymore."
Yet over the past several weeks, instead of vaguely knowing my heart needs to be renewed, I have gradually become aware of which specific pieces need renewal:
I didn't realize I have been living so fear-based.
The recognition came with a disappointing awe. How many years have I loved God, served him, and tried to live for him, yet still not fully experienced one of the primary gifts he gives? Freedom.
I once lived in closer relationship with that freedom, as my old journal entries recall the more hopeful person I used to be. My twenty-something-year-old self penned pages and pages of faith-filled prayers, assuring thoughts, and personal reminders that all would be well, even when circumstances looked doubtful.
Where did that trusting girl go? When did this person of fear take her place?
>>A heart crushed a few too many times left me fearful to trust anyone with its safekeeping.
>>Chronic medical problems that wouldn't respond to treatment or went ignored by physicians left me hesitant to place any confidence in the next doctor or procedure.
>>The worry of pleasing other people left me in bondage to their opinions, rather than confident in my own.
>>Life's trail of brokenness left me in constant apprehension, perpetually waiting for the other shoe to drop, careful to cross my t's and dot my i's and preface every wish or dream with a disclaimer, in the desperate hope that if I never drop my guard beyond a certain level, perhaps life would not always appear as a savage beast just waiting to pounce on me...
Not at all the perspective of a child living in the freedom of her Father.
God---
I am sorry.
This is not who I want to be.
I repent.
So when I prayed Day One's prayer of renewal, I could not simply read the vague though lovely prayer I saw on my computer screen. I altered it, personalized it, and made it a little more specific:
Dear God---
Please renew my heart in Christ,
so that I live in the freedom you designed for me to live in,
so that I experience my life as all it can be when I unreservedly trust in you,
with a freedom I have not fully embraced yet.
Here you go, Jesus...
I hand you my fear...
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