Lord,
It's hard to know where to begin. The last three months have been full of joyous moments and some challenging moments too. Lord, I thank you for the challenges that have prodded me to seek your heart more deeply.
Lord, I've been placed in situations that tested my willingness to extend grace. But at the same time, I was challenged to establish when grace is no longer the most loving thing to do, and setting boundaries is most necessary and healthy. I know that Satan wants me to believe that healthy boundaries means that I become controlling. But thanks for being strong for me. For helping me not to internalize self-critique that could have kept me from doing the most loving thing. I've seen my selfishness come out. I've seen pride, anxiety, and gossip come out of my mouth. I've also seen how you've convicted me of that and ask me to take action. Lord, I have messed up and not always responded as I wish I would have. Thanks for extending the same overwhelming grace to me that you gave to Peter, when he sometimes acted without thinking. Lord, show me how to love with grace AND boundaries. And how to let the responsibility for someone's relationship for you not be my responsibility...but yours. I am a willing vessel. Use me, but I ask for discernment, when I sometimes need to take a step back and say...this has to be God. Don't let me get sucked into a huge ego that would make me believe that anything I could do would ever save anyone. It's only you and the holy spirit.
Father, I pray for those who know you and have received your grace. I pray that they would not remain stagnant by the word of your grace, but would be changed by it. Please continue to bring spiritual mentors into the lives of young adults Lord. There are so many people carrying around brokenness, and just need a mature Christian to walk alongside them and speak into their lives to become more like you. But Lord, only you can ignite that desire in someones heart. They have to want you and your grace, and to desire to know who you are personally. They have to want that healing. Not because of pressure from friends or relatives, but because they recognize their deep need for you. They recognize that nothing else of this world will satisfy the unquenched need in their hearts.
Lord, I pray that you would show me the things about myself that sometimes I like to pretend are not there. Heal those areas of my life that bring me shame. Allow me to take the pressure off of myself to fix them, so that you can do it perfectly. I will never be perfect. You didn't design me to be that way. I pray though that my blundders and missteps could ultimately be used just as much for you...because you are, well, just that wonderful and capable.
Amen:)
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