If you know the song (Green Day's J.A.R.), you know the lyric is left open-ended. This has been one of the issues I've dealt with this summer. I'm still fairly youngish and darn right, I'm able to do whatever I want, but this begs the question, what is it that I want to do? I certainly know its not sitting around on my couch in my underwear while watching the World Cup. There are my New Year's resolutions I still comment on, but if the best you're taking out of life is being well read and decently attractive with good taste in beer, well, you can do better. My daily $2 criteria is better, but I think the question found a much better answer in this morning's corporate prayer of confession.
"Lord Jesus, I sin - Grant that I may never cease grieving because of it, never be content with myself, never think I can reach a point of perfection. Kill my envy, command my tongue, trample down self. Give me grace to be holy, kind, gentle, pure, peaceable, to live for thee and not for self, to copy thy words, acts, spirit, to be transformed into thy likeness, to be consecrated wholly to thee, to live entirely to thy glory. Deliver me from attachment to things unclean, from wrong associations, from the predominance of evil passions, from the sugar of sin as well as its gall, that with self-loathing, deep contrition, earnest heart searching I may come to thee, cast myself on thee, trust in thee, cry to thee, be delivered to thee."
I'm not saying I know how to do this exactly or that I could just magically switch to this mindset, but I do know there is profound wisdom there. The self-loathing and deep contrition is already there when I see the all too familiar sugar of sin and give in to tasting it again. I definitely will never be fully content with myself and I don't ever want to be. I think I'm fairly raw and will never be a finished product and I love that about myself. This entire prayer is what I need to strive for but I know I'm certainly not strong enough to do this on my own.
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