Lord, I confess I want nothing more than ease and comfort out of life.
I want neither worry nor sorrow, nor pain, and I especially do not want to face those dark and long tunnels of fear about the future.
I want to count on all my tomorrows as if I am already immortal, and go on living as I am, as if I am already perfected.
I especially do not want to suffer.
Yet I know in my heart that You have more than this in mind for me, and if you were to grant my fervent prayers for these things I would remain unfit for eternity in Heaven.
I would be as that man who looks in the mirror and turns, and immediately forgets what he has seen, and forgets what manner of man he really is.
I know from Your precious and life-sustaining Word that You will use even my weakness and doubt for Your glory, though I dread that long trek through the Valley.
I must trust that You will lead me, and that Your ways are perfect.
I know I am not alone and that Your grace is sufficient, but that knowledge does not prevent my heart from racing and my thoughts from spiraling into frenetic uncertainty. nor from second guessing, nor from the deepest longing for relief.
I long not to lean on my own fretful and nightmarish understanding, but to trust in You with all my heart.
I face that insurmountable wall of mortality that is my sole understanding of what it means to be alive, and in the darkness I, like your servant Job, wish that I might never have been born.
Yet I know that I can do all things through my Christ who strengthens me.
I must trust that what is for your Glory is also for my greatest good.
I must trust that You are who You say You are - my God and my Father.
I must trust that Your Son was sent to save me from all that my sin deserves.
I must trust that You hear my prayers and love me, and will give me no more than I can bear.
I have no reason to doubt You, and every reason to know that You are for me and not against me; that Your thoughts toward me are more than I can number.
But oh my Lord and Savior Jesus, sometimes when the veil is lifted and I see all that could come to pass, I tremble in abject terror, and cry out like a bereft child.
Hear my cry, O God.
You know my inmost parts. You know the number of my days, before there was even one.
You know my going out and coming in and my ways. And you love me with an everlasting love.
Draw close to Your child now, my God. Comfort me and strengthen me.
For without You there is nothing. And worse than nothing.
