The pruning blade has been set on my life. I prayed for Him to break me and rebuild me the way HE chooses. That is not an easy prayer to pray, and it's even harder standing up under the blade. It cuts into the innermost parts of myself, revealing things I'd rather keep hidden under the layers. It takes out from under me any and all human "props" upon which I lean too heavily. It exposes and wipes out any and all excuses. It puts my feet on a path not often trod...bumpy, winding, steep. It drains even the good things and leaves in its place gaping holes. Holes. To empty me of ME so that He can fill me with HIM.
The pruning process hurts, but it should be our DESIRE...to be so emptied of self that we can overflow with Him. Remember His conditions for being His disciple:
1) Deny yourself
2) Take up your cross
3) Follow Him
I'm in step #1. Struggling daily with denying myself. I find it quite simple to deny myself some things, but the pruning blade cuts deeper into things that aren't as easy. What about denying myself the right to feel hurt, to be appreciated, to be understood, to be right? What about denying myself all the well-laid plans I have, the desires I naturally aspire toward, the dreams that lure me, the comfort that beckons me? Denying myself requires humility that I simply do not posses in the natural.
Though I'm not familiar with Catholic prayers and may have never run across this prayer in my daily life, the Lord graciously brought it to my attention. My friend who was giving a speech about orphan ministry quoted this prayer. It stuck with me. I read it over and over. I began to pray it. I printed it out so that I could be reminded of it daily...
O Jesus! meek and humble of heart,Hear me.
From the desire of being esteemed,
Deliver me, Jesus.
From the desire of being loved...
From the desire of being extolled ...
From the desire of being honored ...
From the desire of being praised ...
From the desire of being preferred to others...
From the desire of being consulted ...
From the desire of being approved ...
From the fear of being humiliated ...
Fromthe fear of being despised...
From the fear of suffering rebukes ...
From the fear of being calumniated ...
From the fear of being forgotten ...
From the fear of being ridiculed ...
From the fear of being wronged ...
From the fear of being suspected ...
That others may be loved more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be esteemed more than I ...
That, in the opinion of the world,
others may increase and I may decrease ...
That others may be chosen and I set aside ...
That others may be praised and I unnoticed ...
That others may be preferred to me in everything...
That others may become holier than I,provided that I may become as holy as I should…
And, in my friend's speech, she added:
And that I may love you, Jesus,
With all my heart
With all my soul
With all my mind
And that I may love my neighbor as myself.
The only way to make this reality in my life is to be placed ever so lovingly under the pruning blades of the Master. Let everything in me be pruned. "Empty me of me so that I can be filled with You."
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