God, I want to give up.

God, you are doing a lot in me and through me but I’ll be honest.

It feels like too much.  The work you’re doing through circumstances, relationships, and my spiritual walk feels so overwhelming.

I didn’t realize that when I told you I wanted to be used by you that it would look like this.

It’d be so easy to give up.

It’d be so easy to just leave it all behind.  How easy it’d be easy to take the safe, superficial way, the way of middle class, comfortable Christianity…where what matters is how clean my kitchen is or where to vacation this spring break.  Where what matters is the pretty photos of my family on Facebook.

God, forgive me for those thoughts, but I want that so bad some days!

I wish I didn’t retreat back to the lie I thought I abandoned so long ago… that you’re uncaring, hard-nosed, and pressing me under your thumb “for my own good”.   That it’s my lot in life to struggle.  Forgive me!

There are days I want to do nothing and see if anybody’s noticed…to see if you’ve noticed.

There are days that all I can do–against all the evidence presented in front of me–is cling to Psalm 27:13-14:

“I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living!  Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!”

And it’s only by your Spirit that I can recall that verse in those moments because the rest of me says, “Drop it all.  Give up.”

God, I want to wrap up my cry to you in a neat little bow.

I want to offer my prayer like a good little Christian woman’s prayer “should be”.  I want my prayer to come full circle and end with a sigh of relief.  But cries to you don’t always end as a healing balm for my soul.

Some days–like today–they feel like just a desperate surrender that feels worn.  It’s still surrender, but just barely, with my head on the counter.  It’s still obedience, but obedience in brokenness and a too-keen awareness of how limited I am, wanting to FEEL what you say to be true.

I didn’t realize when I labeled Ephesians 3:20-21 as my “life verse”, that you’d actually take me up on that.

“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever, amen.”

Giving you “permission” to do “far more abundantly” than all that I could ask or think for your glory is exposing how limited I really am.  I feel fenced in by my limitations. And I am wrecked by it.

I know in my head that in the midst of the overwhelming sense of limitations, that you’re settling me into that place of surrender…that place where you can show me how limitless you are.  I know that.

That place where, as I realize how bound I am by space, time, emotional bandwidth, and expectations,  that you are unbound.  That you have nothing to hold you back from everything you plan to accomplish in me and through me and in your world.  I know that, too.

But it’s hard.  I KNOW it but it feels impossible to FEEL it.

So God, although in this moment, I’m proving my limitations again by this honest, difficult prayer, I ask you to do what you say you’ll do.

Be merciful and show me that following you with all I am and taking each step of faith each day is worth it.  Worth every tear and step and conversation and sacrifice and prayer.

Not “worth it” in a worldly sense, but “worth it” to experience you deeper than I ever have.  To blow my mind with your limitless, boundless love, power, and grace.  To see you do “your thing” in an instant as the rest of the world rushes on without you.  I know in my spirit that’s what I truly long for, but my flesh is fighting tooth and nail and I’m weak.

Have mercy on me and any sisters & brothers in Christ who long to experience your answer to Ephesians 3:20-21 for themselves, even when it’s wrought with struggle and weak moments in the flesh.  Open our eyes to supernatural gratitude that leads us to praise in the midst of hardship.  We believe you’ll do it!  Fill our spirits with the hope we long for when we can’t see beyond today.  We believe–help our unbelief!

You are God.

Through our limits, I believe you’ll prove again and again that you are limitless.  In your limitless power, we won’t give up.  In Jesus’ name, Amen.