I figured I’d post my Lent prayer – I encourage you to do the same if you’d like!

Dear Jesus, I come to you now, older.
I approach you with an ache
That motivates a hope
That soaks in the sorrow that worketh repentance
And I find myself
Wanting,
Waiting for you to search me, O God,
And begging
That you will excuse the rapidity with which I have become vapid
Emptied of that burning froth
That fire of belly and bone that consumed younger days –
Contented now to avert my eyes from grand enemies
And gaze at the ground of daily life
A working stiff
A worried entangler
Dangling by a thread.

I come to you now, sadder,
Bewildered by the speed of time
And the way that seeds of sin planted young
Rear ugly heads
Busting out of the fertile soil of years;
I did not expect this
Did not plan to become something different,
But such is the way of death
That it comes slowly and surely
To gradually obscure one’s visage of its glow
Until purely conformed to the grave
And before you even know it.
This is diabolical work
This decline
This degradation
This deterioration
Taking a creation made to live
And stealing
Killing
Destroying
Like a lion lying in wait to devour.

I come to you now, begging
For mercy
For clemency from complacency
Looking unto you, Jesus –
Author
Finisher
Alpha
Omega
Word not returning void –
To resume the work in me like Nehemiah on the wall
To bring tall the gates of righteousness
To dig deep the well of holiness
To pound hard the nail of sacrifice
To WAKE ME UP
From illusory slumber
To the all-consuming reality of your being.
I ask you to
Search me, O God,
To douse my stubborn head in the cold water of your word.

For I come to you, hoping
That even as words leave the tips of my fingers
You are dying that I might not
You are suffering that I might know joy
You are suffocating on a cross of shame
As if even now –
Now,
As I come to you
You are standing as the slaughtered lamb of life
To receive my request into the bloodied hands
Of brutal and perfect love
Saying, “I have done it,
I have done it,
I have done it.”
What is this kind of love?
A love that finds me sunk down in the deepest pit of clarity
Submerged to the neck
In helpless slavery and says such words?
Awake, my soul, and rejoice –
For your God
This one they call Jesus
Is such love
Faithful to a thousand generations
Preserving from a thousand temptations
And ready to save even me
Every day
Every hour
Every time I come to him, older.

In his name I pray,
Amen