mercy

So I spent the first hour (plus time later in the afternoon as well) praying the sinner's prayer for mercy: "God have mercy on me a sinner." I've done this kind of thing in the past, though only for briefer periods of time. Admittedly, by the standards of true contemplatives, doing this for an hour is also a "brief period of time." But for today, it was a good start. So I was going along saying this one-sentence prayer each time I exhaled. Suddenly, as I ended one of the exhale/prayers, a single word came to my mind/spirit.

Pride. It came as clearly as if it had been spoken audibly. So in the next exhale, I said "God have mercy on me for my pride." Then I toggled between "me a sinner" and "for my pride" several times. And suddenly another word came. Then another and then more. When that first hour was up, I wrote down the list of words as I could remember them....

God have mercy on me...

a sinner

for pride

for rebellion

for self-centeredness

for deceitfulness

for scheming

for bitterness

for resentfulness.

It's somewhat distressing to realize all this about myself. We go along thinking of ourselves as being really some kinda Christian. Then we spend a little extended quiet time and we let ourselves get honest with God and we let God have a little peak inside (as if He needs that, He's just waiting for us to get quiet and still enough to listen) and suddenly we see what we're really like. Well, for any who might be inclined to write and remind me of God's mercy and forgiveness, I will forestall your reminder by reminding you that I was praying for God's mercy and forgiveness. So not to worry.

Later, another term (from James 1) came along: double-minded. "The double-minded man is unstable in all his ways."

Then toward the end of that first hour, I started seeing some similarities between the list God was forming to reveal myself to me and what is happening in my son's situation. So after a little break (certain needs of nature don't seem to understand about being quiet with God), I started praying for the church where he serves. I used most of the same terms from the above list and sought God's victory over those things. Maybe I can say more about that later or at another date.

I think that's enough for now.