from an anonymous friend ...

Someone who wishes to remain anonymous wrote this prayer. I thought it would be worth posting because I was challenged and humbled.

"Jesus - I love you so much and really, what I'd desire is for others to know and love You like I do, and for their praise to join with mine, so the grateful worship that glorifies You will be louder and greater and mutual. What I'm asking You today would be for Your strength and perseverance in my compassionate love, discipling others closer to You, and also for Your touch on others' hearts so they will be receptive and responsive to Your Spirit.

We are so blind, Jesus - so numbed by our materialistic culture. We can't even see You or feel You because we're so self-consumed in our own agendas and attempts to control our own lives. We desire comfort and happiness more than we want You. We worship our own lives and freedoms more than we worship You, and because of that, we have idolized our comfort and become unwilling to suffer trials for You. Jesus, we've lost sight of eternity and the sacrifice You made to give It to us. All we want is our own comfort and peace and satisfaction in things that will burn. We want clothes and home decor and jewelry, but we don't want the trials that will refine our faith and make us ready to see Your face.

We choose a wall hanging instead of feeding an orphan and we choose a diamond bracelet when we could choose to feed a hundred widows for their lifetimes. We squander the blessings You hand us with intentions that we'll bless others and be blessed in the giving, and instead we choose to buy gadgets and screens for ourselves so that we can play with cyber birds and candy and farm animals. Some of us even buy sex on the same screens, and instead of feeding or rescuing women who've been brutalized and starved and stolen, we instead purchase the view to arouse ourselves as they are beaten and raped again.

And then we go and sit in a "church" and sing a song, toss a fraction of a percentage that we spent on our self- extravagance and sin for the month into the plate and fall asleep while Your anointed preaches his bleeding heart out onto the altar.

Oh Holy Spirit, I don't know what to do with these people around me, and I don't know what to do with my own sinful heart. I don't usually wish, but today I'm going to, because this is not a prayer. A prayer is a request, believing that You want it too. And what I'm wishing today, I just don't know whether or not You want it. And also, I'm partially afraid to pray it because You just might make it so.

Jesus - today I just wish -

I wish You'd humble each and every one of us. I wish You'd rip this ugly attitude of entitlement out of our hearts until we bleed and beg for Your forgiveness. I wish You'd just show us a glimpse of Your glorious beauty in our churches so we'd be willing to come to Your altar unfailingly every week and maybe every day for just a little bit more of You. I really wish You'd tear all of this extravagance out of our hands and give it to starving families around our world. I wish You'd snatch me out of my comfy home with my shelves and shelves of books and throw me (yes, throw me) into a place where I can teach hungry, illiterate minds to read Your Word. Oh, Jesus - I wish You'd rip us apart from our idol of "happiness." I wish You'd deface that non-god and reveal who she really is - lust for self pleasure. No different from Asherah herself. So opposite to the true joy You give when we know You.

Abase us, Jesus. I wish You would. Do whatever You need to. I wish You'd change us.

I wish You'd make us Your followers."