With Your Love

Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.—Ephesians 4:32 NIV

Dear Lord, in your presence there are no secrets. In your light, all things that are wrong in my life are revealed. I ask for your refining fire to purge my heart of all the things that keep me from praying and praising and worshiping you. I choose to focus on you. I decide to leave the evils of this world behind to make you Lord today. I decide to make you my opinion—the love of your heart, my constant thought—the love you have for your children, my constant decision. We all have different opinions. The enemy uses this to wedge a wall between us—to divide and destroy and create dissension.

Lord, Jesus, continually change my heart so I can love with your unconditional love. In your love on Calvary, you gave the greatest compassion. Again and again, your love for me is new each morning—asking me to rise to the needs of the day to come—asking me to love with your love no matter what might happen. Holy Spirit, erase the need to analyze each event in my life. Bypass my mind, which in its reasoning, can allow a lie to take root. Bypass my mind, and inflame my spirit with your fire. Burn away the ugliness, Lord—the hurt feelings—the idea that I must have the last word—the idea that I have the right answer. I pray for your Holy fire to consume me. Let that fire become the light of your presence to a world that longs for a love that loves without measure—that yearns for your forgiveness. The world sees our differences, Lord. They don’t see the beautiful love that we share in you. They see our divided hearts. That is why we need to live in your Spirit, love in your Spirit, and forgive in your Spirit. This is why we must love with your compassion.

As I kneel before you—as I seek your face—as I ask for your joy to be my strength—as I lift my turbulent heart to you, I give you my anxious thoughts with thanksgiving in my heart. You will take care of what I can’t. I have no opinion to prove—no word that surpasses another given to someone else—no need to shine. I want to be less so that you can be more. I want to love with the passion of your cross—loving beyond what I alone don’t have the capacity to give. In your peace, I am free. I pray to be what I can never be without you—free to love as you love me.

Copyright © 2017 Lynn Lacher