Prayers From A Restless Heart

August 6, 2016

“Oh Lord, now I understand where you’ve be trying to bring me to and take me away from. Oh blessed Lord, take me away from the desires and passions that bring such delights that replace your central delight in my heart. Free me Lord from all the addictions and loves that have filled me with pleasures that make the longing for the Ultimate Pleasure a non-essential. Stir in my bosom again, the acute pain of longing after you; the inner dissatisfaction from worldly and human delights; stir in me the restlessness that will keep pushing me forward into a deeper longing for a deeper experience of God. Take me away from the cold assumption that all is well with me when in reality, I am cold and dry and empty of the deep infilling of God. Lord I am not satisfied and never allow me become satisfied with promotions or positions or prosperity or preaching of the gospel. These satisfactions are thieves for they rob me of the longing for more: the longing for a deeper experience of God.

I want you Lord. I want God, not ministry or recognition. I want more of God, not fame and applause of men. I want more of God, not better finances and comforts of this life. If I must move beyond this low living, I must break out of the present situation and long for what is beyond. I want, I need more. O God, give me more of you. Please. Let the pain for you not subside until I capture the deeper recesses of God. This I cry for, in Jesus name. Amen.”

“Am trembling as I write because I know very well the things you have been demanding that I give up but I have sneaked around and escaped your hands each time (or so I thought). No wonder my cries for spiritual renewal has failed to happen and no wonder I have become increasingly hedged in on all sides, being drawn further and further away into the deserts of nothingness; into the parched grounds of self-centeredness and aloneness. But I today come in full determination and under your divine grace, to renounce altogether and in totality, my addictions to certain vain possessions, primary of which are the addictions to the pleasures of film watching, the bondage to the electronic media of emails and whatsapping, the desires for self-recognition by men, the undue desires for sexual satisfaction and the promotion of my self ego by multiple ministry activities- all camouflaged and justifiable by different sick and ugly reasons created in my ugly heart of self justification. But from these and other possessions of self, I ask for total deliverance and make a commitment of full cooperation from today; knowing that the testing will surely come and that the painful struggle will ensue; but I know that as I surrender to you, I will surely overcome and enter the full bliss of rediscovering God afresh; which is the deepest longing of my heart; a pleasure that no other earthy pleasure can compare with at all. This I pray, in Jesus name. Amen.”

‘Lord I am tired of this self life that keeps deceiving me and tripping me up. I know the work of the cross is painful but since that is the only way to be free from the disgusting influence of the veil of the self life, I invite the work of the cross to do a complete work of uprooting the very fabrics of the self life with all its deceptions; and do not mind the cries of my life for mercy; go ahead and uproot and tear down this wicked veil that I may thereafter enjoy what I have so desperately wanted: to enjoy the full and natural gaze into the face of my Lord and God. Amen.’

‘My spiritual faculties are dull but not dead O God. Because you live in me, they are still alive but not sharp or able to perceive easily. I want to see and hear and taste this real spiritual world around me, this mount Zion that exists in real time. I know it’s not only for when we get to heaven; it’s real now and I want to see its reality and experience its reality. Grant me Lord the faith and focus to grasp that which is already here and available to be grasped. Help me overcome the tyranny of the temporal and physical world while leaving out the realty of the unseen world for the next life. I believe that in this present life, I can behold and apprehend the unseen realities around, the realities chaired by my Father God Himself- who is King of both worlds and invites me to see His other world just as I see this world. O Lord, may this not simply be an intellectual desire but may the aching desire of my heart give evidence to the reality of my hunger, and may I be elevated by faith to begin to enter this other world that beckons me to come in. This I pray in Jesus name. Amen’

‘Your world is all around me but I need to grow in that spiritual receptivity and immediacy of response to the divine invitation. You are constantly inviting me upward and deeper but the world is too close and too strong for me. Help me respond to you; to slowly cultivate the disciplines that the saints of old had, that enabled them grow into spiritual encounters beyond my current experience. I cannot remain blind when such a rich world of heavenlies surround me. I cannot remain hungry when the Almighty invites me into His banquet. I know you are not responsible but I am but what can I do without your help. The desire is there; now I ask for the grace to stay focused and steady as you lead me through my spiritual faculties- to discern and encounter you in ways I’ve never done before. This will be my paradise, my exquisite joy, my overwhelming fulfillment- to see and know and experience my Father who is the Almighty God. This I pray will happen to me, in Jesus name.’

“Lord I know you are always speaking. My biggest problem is that I don’t always hear and many times, I hear and disobey. I believe you are speaking through the Scriptures and beyond the Scriptures. I believe you speak with an audible voice and you speak within my heart. I believe also you speak through my conscience and through the words of your servants. I know you are always speaking. I may not understand your voice in the cosmos of the planetary systems neither do they concern me in the immediate; but I crave to hear your voice clearly, to understand your mind for me in every situation, and to respond to you correctly. This I ask in Jesus name. Amen.”

‘My life O Lord is punctuated with a thousand distractions, all insisting that I gaze their way. Your call to ‘look at you’ is a true call but I must first fight the thousand battles to overcome their appeals and demands. Yet, only in looking at you does life have meaning; only in looking at you does my burdens get lighter; only in gazing at your beautiful face does my face become brighter and more beautiful. For as long as I look away from you, all I will ever be and become will be ugliness to heaven and eventually, ugliness to my fellow man. I need your special touch to keep my inward gaze gazing heavenward, even as I undertake life’s many mundane duties. O such sweetness of life will be my portion if I can only practice this for a portion of the day and such heavenly bliss if I can practice all the day long. But I know the battles before me and because it is your will that I so gaze upon thee, I am confident that you will send the flames of heaven to clear out my distraction and quench every fiery dart aimed at my soul- freeing me up sufficiently and regularly to gaze at thy lovely face. What scenes of rest for those who can see His lovely face. What eternal rest befall them who rise above the stormy seas of earthly living to look undistracted at the heavenly Lord, who always looks back in deep love and adoration to His ransomed creation. I am ransomed Lord and my only desire is you: you and you alone is my obsession and I am unashamed to say that you are my only and absolute obsession; and life’s daintiest and seductions pale when compared to the fullness that comes from being with you. So make this become my daily reality o great Father, I plead in Jesus name. Amen.’

‘It’s all about your honor; it’s all about taking my rightful place of total submission to you O Lord. When I think I know better than you, I naturally set off making my own decisions and pursuing my own goals which bring me in direct conflict with you. But if my life pursuit is tied to your being glorified, then it doesn’t really matter what men think about me or what I lose in this pursuit, because all that counts at the end of the day is not my glory but yours. You are my Lord and you are my maker. Help me live in this ever remembrance of who you are and whom I belong to and as I take my right place in subservience and humility before you, I know you will trust me enough to show your glory through me. Purge me of every secret desire for self promotion and self elevation; a desire that will eventually develop to begin to struggle with your glory. Whatever good has ever come out of me, may I recognize that it was SOLEY because I lived in utter submission to you. And whenever and wherever I have started putting my name and glory ahead, then Lord, you have my total permission to tear it all down. For it is in tearing it down, that I will return to my senses and seek again your honor and glory. Please do these for me Lord. I ask in Jesus name.’

‘Lord Jesus, deliver me from myself because in myself dwells no good thing. There is so much falsehood and pretense that it becomes difficult sometimes to know who is the real me. The fabric of artificiality sometimes weaves itself into every day thinking that I find myself subconsciously doing something in a particular way because I want certain people to see me in a particular light. Sometimes, I say things with some exaggeration- the exaggeration ever so little- yet I wonder why I had to exaggerate, if not to tone up image or give a sense of greater wonder of my person or my ability. It’s all about Self at the end of the day and the cry of my heart, is that I may learn to be meek and lowly and satisfied in whom you’ve made me to be. You Jesus were full of power and miracles and wisdom and divine authority; and yet to were meek and lowly- and you invite us to be such. The meekness that means spiritual weakness is not what you want of me because I know it takes spiritual strength to be meek and meekness is a sign of spiritual strength. So deliver me from pride and every form of self elevation (irrespective of how its disguised). Also deliver me Jesus from all my insecurities that promote falsehood; and teach me to rest in you, and the true me in you. Amen.’

‘Lord, I see your life so perfect while you lived in a h body of this flesh. You did not disdain the flesh; you compelled it to do your will and the will of your Father. And the body responded. It did not overpower you but you overpowered it and made it your slave to fulfill your mission. Everything you did was sacred because you transformed the entirety of your living into a sacred pilgrimage. This is what k desire for my life. That every aspect of my day and thought; every action and activity will carry the full fragrance and presence of the Most High. Could you make something as mundane as using the bathroom a holy experience? Yes. Lord, may every breathe I take and every step I make, be a holy activity. May the powers of the flesh and the old life not hijack my day and turn some parts into irreverent acts and others into sacred acts. May my whole life by a sacred journey full of sacred events; and may you Lord warn me and deliver me from the slippery slopes of carving out some sections of my life as being for ‘me’ and therefore not necessary in the sacred journey. Help me Lord, in Jesus name.’

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