A Prayer About the Orphan in Me
I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. John 14:18
Lord Jesus, there are certain moments, days-even much longer stretches-when I begin to think, feel and live as though I’m an orphan-as though I don’t really have a heavenly Father who loves me deeply and is involved in every detail of my life.
When I get tricked back into this downward spiral, my spirit shrinks and my fears enlarge; my peace says “Bye-bye” and my control issues say, “We’re back!”; I get defensive and I go on the offensive. In short, I become someone not very “fun” to be around. Instead of the life-giving aroma of the gospel, I start exuding the life-sucking smell of a waif.
Jesus, I repent! Just writing this prayer-calling it what is really is, seeing my own words, offering no excuses… awakens within me the call to gospel-sanity. I so wish there was a button I could push or a switch I could throw and all of the sudden “snap out of it.” There is no such shortcut. But there is repentant faith, which is better by far.
Jesus, you haven’t left me as an orphan. You have come to me, and to us, through the gift of the Holy Spirit-the Spirit of Adoption, the very Spirit by which we cry, “Abba, Father!” You never have and never will abandon me. But right now, I abandon myself to you this morning and to the resources of the gospel. Holy Spirit, indeed, gossip the good news of my sonship to my spirit this very day. And as one hour gives way to the next hour, may the aroma of the gospel override the smell of a waif. So very Amen I pray, in Jesus’ name, with longing expectancy.