I turn to you my Abba and in the turning find you already attentive. For you long for these moments together with an unquenchable thirst don't you? I've never really understood this, but I do trust it and find that it is one of those things about you Abba that is truly Good.
"Take up your mat and walk..."
What are you talking to me??? How can I? I've lain here in my inability, in my uncertainty, in my incapacity for so long. These are familiar to me. They are safe and known...
How can I stand and take those steps? Don't you know that I do not know how? How can you know me and ask such a thing of me?
"Take up your mat and walk..."
And there you go again. What do you see in me that makes you think I can? What do I not see or think or do that you so clearly trust to be in me? How can your vision of me be so very different than my vision of myself?
Aren't I frail?
Aren't I weak?
Haven't I tried before and failed and what makes this time any different anyway?
I'll probably just botch it up and collapse...
"Take up your mat and walk..."
And what if I do... wont I just fall down? Wont I fail... and what then? Will you care for me still? Will you yet call me "child" even then... or will you too turn a frowning eye, a condescending look my way... I know those looks... I've seen them too many times in the mirror and in the eyes of friends and strangers alike. Would you hide your face from me? I have fallen and I have failed... more than I probably even want to admit. Would the shame I know all too well from my past failures simply be the foretaste of the shame you would feel for me then?
Oh God... I don't know why you would ask this. Of all things, this...
...
"Take up your mat and walk..."
...my doubts do not matter?
... my frailties will not drag me down?
"Take up your mat and walk..."
... my fears don't have to be my prison?
... my past isn't my trap?
"Take up your mat and walk..."
Ok, ok... ok I get it. Or at least I think I might. You know something about me that I do not. Your vision of me is something I have yet to learn... something I have yet to trust.
"Take up your mat and walk..."
Alright then... I suppose it is time to rise. I 'm going to trust that you know what you are doing here in me... so now I will stand. I'm going to need your help. I will need you to show me the way. I will rise because your voice calls me up.
Because of you, I will stand.
Here we go dear Abba... ready or not, here we go...
...now don't let go.
Amen
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Peace
~GenXRev