Wanting to want…

God, I don’t love you. I don’t even want to love you. But, I want to want to love you
- Theresa of Avila

I don’t always mean what I pray. Often, my prayers are nothing more than words I know I should say. “Thank you Lord, for helping X/L through that,” or so I’ll pray when at the end of the day, as I recall some difficulty a friend’s may have been in which he/she found some resolution or comfort. Am I really grateful? If I were to be honest, I may actually be more jealous that my friend found a resolution or found comfort in a situation so quickly, whereas I’m still waiting for an answer from God for many things, maybe similar things.

As soon as I say those words, I can almost see my prayers bouncing off the ceiling, falling to floor and evaporating quicker than liquid nitrogen at room temperature. A strange and disturbing sense of a distance from God envelopes me. Part of me then wants to be angry at God for not listening to my prayer, or frustrated for not having gotten through. But deep down I know; it’s fake. It doesn’t deserve to be heard.

God: I want you to pray son.
Bruce: Lord, feed the hungry. And… bring peace to all mankind…. How’s that?
God: Great!…. If you want to be Miss America. Now, come on. What do you really care about?
Bruce: Grace.
God: Hmn… You want her back.
Bruce: No. I want her to be happy. No matter what that means. I want her to find someone to treat her with all the love that she deserved from me. I want her to meet someone who’ll see her always as I do now, through Your eyes.
God: Now that’s a prayer!
Bruce: Yeah?
God: Yeah….
- Bruce Almighty

I try again. “Thank you Lord, for helping X/L through that.”

I almost hear a voice asking back, “Do you really mean that?”

I humbly confess, “No. But I do want to be grateful that you answered my friend’s prayer.”

The small voice still persist, “Do you really?”

I can hide nothing. I must come clean. “Lord, I know I should be grateful that you answered my friend’s prayer, but I’m not. I’m more jealous than I am grateful. I don’t think I honestly even want to be grateful.”

I’m finally face-to-face once again with my depravity. All pretenses are gone. I see my own selfishness and self-centeredness in HD, and it’s not pretty. Any secret thought that God was entitled to hear my prayer because I had been “good” is gone.

“Lord, somewhere deep down, I really want to be just grateful for my friend. That’s all I can say. You have shown me once again that there is nothing good in me when I’m left to myself. You know my deepest desires, and know that somewhere buried under all the dirt, I really do want to change. Please help me.”

This time, the words don’t fall back.

I am full of earth, …
I am stained with dirt,
Prone to depravity, …
But a certain sign of grace is this
From a broken earth flowers come up
Pushing through the dirt.
- David Crowder, “Wholly Yours”

Filed under: Uncategorized , bruce almighty, david crowder, depravity, gratefulness, honesty, prayer, selfishness