This is a longer prayer from Prayers from The Water’s Edge. I wrote it to be prayed daily during Lent. I encourage you to pray it (or parts of it) starting today (Ash Wednesday) and continue praying it until the day before Easter, April 15th. Find a few words or phrases and focus on a small part of the prayer each day. For example, ask yourself what it would look like for you to turn from fear to freedom or how you are going to make the most of the time God gives you.
Dear God,
It is Lent. A season of renewal.
Days of reflection. Nights of replenishment.
Weeks of repairing and refocusing. Ending in a day of resurrection and rebirth.
Grant me discipline. Discipline to be faithful.
Discipline to hunger for Your Word.
Discipline to thirst for conversation and quiet time with You.
Discipline to love what You love and to love like You love.
Teach me again that discipline yields a rich harvest of grace and peace.
Remove any obstacles between us and move me closer to You.
Bless me with repentance.
To turn away from anything that distances me from You.
To turn from lust to love.
To turn from fear to freedom.
To turn from jealousy to justice.
To turn from selfishness to service.
To turn from haughtiness to humility.
To turn from gluttony and greed to goodness and grace.
To turn from doubting and depression to depending fully on You.
To turn from worshipping counterfeit gods to worshipping You.
Help me repent of my sins and turn to You, so my sins are wiped away.
Remind me of my mortality.
I was created from dust and to dust I shall return.
My time in the world You created is limited.
Help me make the most of it.
Let Your dreams for me be my dreams for me.
Make my purposes clear. Give me a passion for my purposes.
And let me know that this world is not my permanent home.
Your Kingdom; Your heart is my true and eternal dwelling place.
You are faithful to me.
Re-create me in Your image so I am faithful to You and others.
Do something in me during this season.
Do something small and do something big.
And as You do something in me, do something through me.
Bless me and make me a blessing to others and to the world.
Let me experience the resurrection of Christ.
Resurrect me. Give me a rebirth. Raise me to new levels of life.
Amen.
