O God,
You fill the world with food, but we blame you for hunger. You keep the earth from tilting and the arctics from thawing, but we accuse you of unconcern. You give us blue skies, and we demand rain. You give rain and we demand sun. (As if we knew what was best anyway.) We give more applause to a brawny ball player than we do to the God who made us. We demand that you finds a parking place when we ask. And if you don't give is what we want, we say you don't exist( as if our opinion matters.) ... Yet you love us. Father, your love never ceases. Never. Though we spurn you, ignore you, disobey you, you will not change. Our evil cannot diminish your love. Our goodness cannot increase it. Our faith does not earn it anymore than our stupidity jeopardizes it. You don't love us less if we fail. You don't love us more if we succeed. 


Teach me, Lord Jesus, to live simply and love purely, like a child, and to know that You are unchanged in Your attitudes and actions towards me. Give me not to be hungering for the 'strange, rare, and peculiar' when the common, ordinary, and regular --rightly taken-- will suffice to feed and satisfy the soul. Bring struggle when I need it; take away ease at Your pleasure. 

Abba, I abandon myself into your hands. Do with me what you will. Whatever you do, I thank you. I am ready for it all: I accept all. Let your will be done in me and in all your creatures. I wish no more than this, O Lord. Into your hands I commend my spirit. I offer it to you with all the love of my heart, for I love you, Lord, and I give myself, surrender myself into your hands without reserve, with boundless confidence, for you are my Father.

Father make me a crisis man. Bring those I contact to decision. Let me not be a mileposts on a single road; make me a fork, that men must turn one way or another on facing Christ in me. 

"Deliver me from the liars, God! They smile so sweetly but lie through their teeth" (Psalm 120:2)

Rescue me from the lies of advertisers who claim to know what I need and what I desire, from the lies of entertainers who promise a cheap way to joy, from the lies of politicians who pretend to instruct me in power and morality, from the lies of psychologists who offer to shape my behavior and my morals so that I will live a long, happily and successfully, from the lies of religionists who "heal the wounds of this people lightly," from the lies of moralists who pretend to promote me to the office of captain of my fate, from the lies of pastors who "get rid of God's command so you won't be inconvenienced in following the religious fashions!" (MK 7:8). Rescue me from the person who tells me of life and omits Christ, who is wise in the ways of the world and ignores the movement of the Spirit.

The lies are impeccably factual. They contain no errors. There are no distortions or falsified data. But they are lies all the same, because they claim to tell us who we are and omit everything about our origin in you and our destiny in you. They talk about the world without telling us that you made it. They tell us about our bodies without telling us that they are temples of the Holy Spirit. They instruct us in love without telling us about the how you love us and gave yourself for us.

The Father of lies is as work. Lead us not to temptation, but deliver us from evil, for Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.