The Waiting Space

A prayer in response to the complicating of waiting:

Abba --

Though I desire for your name to be my highest prayer and deepest breath, it usually is not, for my self gets in the way. Forgive me, Abba. You are forgiven, beloved.

Though I desire a heart that is soft and open, tender and available to you and to others, it is instead easily turned inward, attentive only to itself. Forgive me, Abba. Your kingdom can never come in and through me if this is where I stay. My kingdom abides in you as my Spirit fills you. This is my work.

Though every good thing I have or have to offer is first a gift from you, I grasp it like it's mine to own and shape. Forgive me, Abba. What do I need to let go of so that I may follow you more faithfully? Let your hands hold loosely all that you have, an offering ongoing.

Shed your light in my shadowy spaces so that I may be fully known, fully seen and completely loved. Uncover the parts of me I would rather hide. Make me whole. I don't know what is in me. This unfolding comes with tenderness and healing. You don't need to be afraid.

My longing for intimacy with you, Abba, seems deeper than my limitations allow. Teach me to be with you so that I might become more like Jesus, and even more your own.

All that you ask is my delight to give. All that you desire is my pleasure to work in you. All that you offer, I hold. Let your posture be toward me: open-hearted, open-handed, open-eyed. All the rest is for me. Daughter, you are mine.

It has been some time since I felt I had anything coherent to offer you. Even still, this one seems a little messy. It's been a time of relative quiet, dimmer glimmers of God that seem to be calling me deeper, but to a place I can't name and don't know how to go. Like the Seurat painting above, the lines are unclear and there's unknowing behind that knoll. And so I wait, open-hearted, open-handed, open-eyed; for even though it's probably beautiful, I do not want to go exploring alone.

Courage to wait, friends. Courage to hope.

The love of God will be perfected within the one who obeys God's word. We can be sure that we've truly come to live in intimacy with God, not just by saying, "I am intimate with God," but by walking in the footsteps of Jesus. (1 John 2:5-6, TPT)