Prayer To Remain Open and Receiving
Wednesday August 19, 2020
OPEN AND RECEIVING
It’s so easy when we feel pressured and vulnerable to feel misunderstood or uncared for by others. Things much more easily seem to go wrong because it’s a challenge for us to keep our thoughts and emotions lined up with reality.
One of the hardest things for all of us to do during this season of the pandemic is to continue to receive the love of God until we are filled and healed and ready to face a new day of challenges.
Unfortunately, it seems easier to hold a record of wrongs than to do the emotionally challenging work of sorting out our part, talking things through and offering either forgiveness or amends for what has gone wrong. We’d rather hang onto resentments that give us an excuse to act out. We want our rights. We want others to make things right with us. We want justice.
God’s way of dealing with suffering in our souls is to offer us grace - grace for our own shortcomings and grace for others who also have shortcomings.
The Bible reminds us:
Put up with one another. Forgive one another if
you are holding something against someone.
Forgive, just as the Lord forgave you. And over
all these good things put on love. Love holds
them all together perfectly as if they were one.
Colossians 3:13-14
Loving and forgiving God, we know we need to keep on receiving Your love until every hurtful issue in our minds and on our hearts is soaked in Your healing goodness. So we begin today by asking for comfort from You for every painful thing that has been cluttering up our minds and our emotions. Fill up every nook and cranny of our hearts God, with Your generous love that heals and restores and makes whole.
As Your enduring love fills us with peace and security, we pray for strength and opportunity to then bless others. When people around us act poorly and hurt us, help us to bring those hurts before You and receive healing before they scar our hearts. If we react poorly to a situation and are filled with guilt and shame, help us to quickly confess our shortcomings to You and receive Your forgiveness. And then give us grace and willingness go to the person who was on the receiving end of our poor reaction and ask for their forgiveness.
We choose to do these things based on Your word which reminds us:
We love because he loved us first. Anyone who says he
loves God but in fact hates his brother or sister is a liar.
He doesn’t love his brother or sister, whom he has seen.
So he can’t love God, whom he has not seen. Here is
the command God has given us. Anyone who loves God
must also love his brothers and sisters.
1 John 4:19-21
We can’t really consistently love others until we are filled up with the love You unfailingly pour into our lives. Help us to remember that great outpouring of grace You’ve given us so many times over the years and then in response to pour out a cup full of that for those we need to rebuild relationship with. Help us to love our brothers and sisters better today than ever.
And so, Lord Jesus, we embrace the lavish love You have for us today. Where it is hard for us to believe and trust, we receive hope and faith. We receive the generous grace You pour out and Your peace that passes all understanding. We receive. We receive. We receive. Amen
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