The following is a prayer that I have been saying repeatedly since January. I felt like I needed to share it on my blog. Perhaps some of you need to read this or maybe you know someone who needs to hear this or maybe I just needed to get uncomfortable and share my insecurities. Regardless of the reasons I know that I have come a long way with this prayer and I know that there are still places God will take me with this prayer. I hope you can get something from reading it. Enjoy!
God, you have called me beyond my comfort zone. You have called me beyond my doubts and beyond my pride. God, you have plans for me; plans that will prosper me and not harm me. But these plans will not be comfortable ones. You desire for me to go farther and to go deeper. To step without fear into the unknown. God, give me boldness to stand where it is a challenge, and to walk where others have faltered. Take me past my comforts and carry me into your plans, that are greater than my fears. Allow me to place my trust in you. All of my trust. Not just a little part of my trust, but all of it. I want to depend on you fully and completely, but still I hold back. Despite knowing of your goodness and your provision, I remain terrified of relinquishing control and submitting to your plans. I am selfish and thus limited. I fear those things which you have already conquered. God help me to transcend the prison of my fears and pride. Give me the strength to pursue discomfort for your sake. To follow wherever your call leads me, despite the “practical” and respectable fears I have acquired through life. I want to depend on you fully with everything that I have and everything that I am. For all my days, I want to seek after you. Lead me past my dependency of comfort. Rather, God, be my comfort in the discomfort. Be my protection through perils. Be my shelter in the storms of this world. Be all the things I need. As I continue this year of discomfort (that is my year of less comfort), God continue to shine your comforting light everywhere. Reveal your hand of peace in all my worries and fears. Transform me into your bold and humble daughter, someone who is willing to go wherever you call without hesitation. Remind me of your true promises and your steady hand. Let me follow you over rocky mountains and perilous deserts. Let me run with determination the road you have called me to. Let no doubts stop me, because I place trust in you in all things. Whisper the truth in my ears so that I can hear your voice in spite of the fears that surround me. Let the discomfort hold no power over me, because I am with you. I am yours and you are mine. Let me follow your voice by the shadowlands and past darkness, through discomfort. I am saying goodbye to my idol of comfort and boldly pressing towards those difficult places you have placed on my heart. But God I need to your hand to cling to, because despite this prayer it still takes more than I have to go through with this decision. I need you more and more each and every day, and each and every day I find more and more of you. To this you have my awe and my thanks.
AMEN
