My Father Who is in Heaven,
I know that You know All Things, the very thoughts of my heart. You know what a hopeless failure I am and how very little I truly understand about You.
There is in me this ‘thing’ that I call ‘the desire to be everything that You would have me to be.’ It may be false, a mere delusion, something that I have picked up from others, a profitless dream. Only You know if it is actually real. I hope that it is but, if it is not, then I ask You to take it away and replace it with a genuine desire, one that would drive me forward until I am completely and totally committed to Your Will.
Now, concerning Your Will, I have been raised and taught by men who seem and seemed to know a lot of doctrine but little of Your Power upon their lives. They were and are good men and faithful and I appreciate them, their labors, and their investments in Your Work. But I find myself living in a time that requires more than information. The world around me, even the majority of the Evangelical Christian world, had gone mad, come completely unhinged from our historical moorings of piety (we don’t even use that word any more), reason, wisdom, and even sanity. This world has swallowed up the majority of what we call ‘The Church’ and then has run off into madness.
We need Your help. I need Your help, an infusion of enablement, an Outpouring of Your Power, first of all to save myself from ‘this untoward generation’ and then to help others, my church, my community, my family, to escape the Wrath, Your Wrath, which is certain to descend upon us unless there is Massive Repentance first in Your people and then in our culture. But as I try to envision what that would look like I realize that it would depend upon You pouring Yourself out upon someone in ways that You have not done in 100 years, maybe longer.
Therefore, in fear and trembling, I am placing myself before You as a volunteer, not knowing for sure what I am asking nor where it will take me, only very settled on two things: (1) I do not want to continue as I am, and (2) I long to see my fellow believers, my church, and my community visited by Your Power. I know that I am ignorant of where this road might take me: Glorious Victory, homelessness and rejection, maybe even death. But I cannot sit still, doing the same things over and
over hoping for a different result. Like the lepers outside of Samaria during the siege, to paraphrase, “If we sit still we die, if we advance on the enemy’s camp all they can do is kill us.”
My death is certain. What is not certain is whether my life will have made any real difference. Father, I am asking You to pour Yourself out upon me in Power and use what is left of my life to make a difference in the lives of those I leave behind and those who come after me.
Lest I be lifted up with false pride, I sign this prayer as,
Your Most Worthless and Unprofitable Servant
— May 14, 2016