A Prayer

Dear-ones, 

This world will try to offer you many messages. They will smell tempting and taste sweet. If you accept them and they are planted inside of you, instead of offering life giving nourishment, they will rot and spread their poison, seeking out all pieces of life inside of you and destroying it in their wake. It will happen so subtly though that one day you will look back foolishly at the person you once were and think the person full of death you are now is better off. Your eyes will become clouded with pleasure and temporary satisfaction. The still small voice that used to guide your heart in wisdom will be drowned out by the sights, sounds, and smells of this temporary fragile place. Your heart will be convinced the voice was a story taught to you by generations past. A made up bed time story meant to help you cope. In your folly, you will deem the grasping at knowledge by a world headed for a collision as truth and toss aside the wisdom of the ages. Your finite brain will esteem itself lord of your own life not recognizing that it once was created and will one day exist no more. 

This world will try to feed you many things. It will tell you that self control is futile and against your very nature. And that this nature should be honored at all times. It will tell you that intimacy and love are subjective and without boundaries. It will tell you that anything requiring internal discipline and denial is not worth it. It will make a strong case for moving on when passion wanes.  It will tell you that pouring yourself out on behalf of others is only worthy when personal gain and recognition come with it.  These are only a few of the lies.

If you believe these things, dear ones, if you let them settle in your heart, they will creep into the rest of your body, they will consume your mind. If you trade the almighty for the temporary, you will only receive the temporary. And the temporary has an end. The temporary has a dark end. It will sink back into the nothingness it came out of. 

You were not meant to end, dear ones. You are meant for much greater things. You are meant to be loved with abandon and to give that love freely in return. You are meant to resist folly and in so doing become strong and wise and full of beauty. You are meant to honor your covenants and find meaning and purpose, in turn honoring yourself and others by keeping your word. You are meant to find strength beyond what you can muster yourself and reach out your hand to the needy, even when you yourself are in need, knowing an even greater hand is there for us all and will not abandon us. 

You are meant to have an unshakable confidence that his hand is truly there. So that when the world brings you its sweet food, you can not only laugh that it suspects you to be so foolish, but you can guide those around you to the true living water, the food that truly satisfies, the love that leads to true fulfillment. 

It won't be easy. The world is a vast place. They will mock you. They will insist it's all make believe. They will desperately cling to the temporary, believing it is all that is valuable, even with their dying breath. As soon as they suspect you will not be moved, they will conjure stronger arguments and batter you down with cunning words.  They will look for your weaknesses and attack when you are feeling tired and worn, hoping to gain ground. Don't mistake their insistence for truth or value. Cling to life and real truth. Hide yourself in him. Wrap your heart in his love. Look to the true healer for salve for your aching heart. You will emerge stronger, mature, with joy and true hope.

And so I pray and so I hope that these words will sink deep. I pray that they sink deep into my own heart. I hope that as you grow and watch me, I only affirm and confirm these truths. Oh give me the strength to confirm these truths. 

Be strong and take heart, dear ones, he has overcome the world and all that strength is also available to you. Let us reach together. 

Amen.

I wrote this during a time of prayer for the children in my life 

who have become very dear to my heart.