A Prayer for the Parched

God,

I am so desperate to encounter You more deeply. I give You permission to interrupt anything in my life that is in the way. Disrupt my distractions. Search the entirety of my heart and destroy every barrier to intimacy found within me.

Put Your finger on every double-minded thought in me. Give me an undivided heart of pure devotion to Christ. Bring my busyness and chaos to a reverent stillness. Show me the futility of every way in which I seek meaning and value apart from You.

I cannot keep going the way I have been going. Your absence removes every hint of satisfaction I have known. Unless You go with me, I cannot go further. Forward momentum is impossible apart from You. I cease my moving and striving to do anything apart from You. I sit in silence as I wait for You to speak once again. Let me know Your ways today more than ever before.

Thank You Almighty God for showing me the futility of my ways. I am weary of the mixture of human agendas with Yours, including my own. All my ways produce death and its stench surrounds me. I abandon every motive and agenda within me that contains mixture. I confess that the completed work of Jesus Christ on Calvary’s cross alone produces life. I can add nothing to it nor can I remove anything from it, and I repent for ever having tried.

My heart longs to know You more. Whatever that costs me, I say yes. Let know have more of You even though it cost all I possess. Your worth exceeds all costs. Thank You for the privilege of free will and choice. I exercise my free will to choose You over everything this life has to offer. I have tasted the fruit of this life and nothing in it satisfies the longings of my heart. Yet, You alone Lord are the fulfillment of my every longing and desire. I was made for loving You and I cast off every hindrance to the expression of my love. Let the extravagance of my devotion to You become even sweeter with each passing day.

Ignite my heart once again with a fresh touch of Your presence. Let me see Your face and in so doing to breathe deeply of life once more that flows from You alone. Bring the whole of existence to a silent pause that I might gaze upon Your glory face-to-face once more and truly live. You have ruined me for every lesser thing than You alone. Let me just sit here as You wash me in wave after wave of Your refreshing presence.