Recently, a walk with my dog reminded me that I am, in fact, not invincible. I hit a patch of ice and fell hard. My knee was bruised and a little bloody, my pants ripped, and my shoes got soaked with slushy snow. As I hobbled home, I straightened up, laughed it off, and tried to pretend the fall didn't hurt as much as it did. I had my cell phone with me and should have called my husband to pick up the dog and me, but I didn't. I like to think of myself as capable, independent, and maybe just a little stubborn. I wasn’t proving anything by walking the rest of the way home; I just didn't want to ask for help. It was a long walk home, and a hard reminder that I am fragile. 

I Can Do It By Myself.

Self-sufficiency can make me feel strong and secure. There is something comforting about believing I can manage anything that comes my way. Oftentimes, I insist on doing things by myself. I am intelligent, strong, and it feels good to prove my strength. However, these things can become a problem when I rely completely on myself and refuse to acknowledge my limitations. Honestly, these traits that I consider strengths can slowly choke my prayer life. I don't consciously choose not to pray; it happens gradually because I have my life under control and can just push through. I end up leaving little room for dependence on God and drift back into self-reliance. 

Are My Prayers Just a Checklist? 

My prayers can become just a checklist of things I want: health, healing, financial wisdom, help for my loved ones. Those are good things to pray for, and God listens. But only asking God for wants is a shallow way to pray. A vibrant prayer life goes much deeper; praying beyond my wants shapes my heart as I grow in faith and obedience, becoming more Christ-like.

I’ve come to realize my self-reliance quickly turns into selfishness, and my prayer life suddenly becomes urgent only when life feels out of control. That slow, limping walk home after the fall on the ice became an unexpected lesson and turned into a meaningful prayer time. I was reminded that I’m dependent on God, whether I notice it or not. So I limped home, thanking God for his love, his forgiveness, and his acceptance of me even when I forget how much I need him. 

Praying with Humility

Seeing my reliance on God produces humility and repentance in my prayer life. Letting go of the need to control everything and shifting to a place of full dependence and surrender to God can be hard. Sometimes the awareness of my need to control everything and my sometimes shallow prayer life can result in deep shame, and I don't know what to say or even where to start my prayers of repentance. So I turn to Scripture to guide my prayers when I find it hard to find the words. I start with a simple prayer, asking God to soften my heart before I try to say anything. 

Helpful Guides

Psalm 130 helps me pray with humility. It gives me the language to ask God for forgiveness and mercy, and to be reminded that I am not meant to manage everything on my own. Psalm 130 ends with a reminder of God’s perfect forgiveness. I like the wording from the paraphrase from The Message; you can find it here in this link.

In addition to Scripture, I also use prayer books to help me pray when I'm not sure what to say or where to start, especially when shame in my heart makes it difficult to name on my own. One collection I use often is Every Moment Holy, written by Douglas McKelvey. This series of books offers prayers from a vast range of everyday moments, like gardening or wrapping gifts to prayers to say at the bedside of a person who is dying.

This prayer from Every Moment Holy, Vol. I offers words to help me pray with humility and repentance:

“A Liturgy for one Battling a Destructive Desire “

Jesus, here I am again, desiring a thing that were I to indulge in it would war against my own heart, and the hearts of those I love. 

O Christ, rather let my life be thine! Take my desires. Let them be subsumed in still greater desire for you, until there remains no room for these lesser cravings. At this moment I might choose to indulge a fleeting hunger, or I might choose to love you more. 

Faced with this temptation, I would rather choose you, Jesus— but I am weak. So be my strength. I am shadowed. Be my light. I am selfish. Unmake me now, and refashion my desires according to the better designs of your love. Given the choice of shame or glory, let me choose glory. 

Given the choice of this moment or eternity, let me choose in this moment what is eternal. Given the choice of this easy pleasure, or the harder road of the cross, give me grace to choose to follow you, knowing that there is nowhere apart from your presence where I might find the peace I long for, no lasting satisfaction apart from your reclamation of my heart.

Let me build, then, my King, a beautiful thing by long obedience, by the steady progression of small choices that laid end to end will become like the stones of a pleasing path stretching to eternity and unto your welcoming arms and unto the sound of your voice pronouncing the judgment: Well done.

Alongside Scripture, these prayers can serve as helpful, gentle guides as you pray your own prayer of repentance and confession. 

A Blessing and A Challenge

Friends, I leave you with a blessing and a challenge: 

May our prayers be deeper than wants. Let us choose to stop limping home in silence and instead have the wisdom to pause and pray before we push through. May the words of our hearts reflect dependence on God, and may we see that this is not weakness, but grace, allowing God to meet us right where we are: bruised, tired, humbled, and loved. May we hold tightly to our faithful Savior, Jesus Christ, praying with honesty, trusting fully, with softened hearts, and loved completely.