We attended an Ash Wednesday service this afternoon and I was struck by a couple of things. First, the call to confession and repentance. How often after reflection and self-examination do I leap forward into "fixing things" without the crucial step of confession before God? I don't really like to name my sin, I just like to fix it. But God knows I need confession and repentance. I need a place to lay it all out before Him and agree with Him as to what it really is.
Secondly, I was struck by the need to confess to one another...something I have no place for, but wonder if that is to my detriment. How serious was God when He said in the scriptures, "Confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed..."?
Lord, we confess to You and to one another that we have sinned by our own fault in thought, word, and deed; by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved You with our whole heart, and mind, and strength. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We have not forgiven others, as we have been forgiven.
We have been deaf to Your call to serve as Christ served us. We have not been true to the mind of Christ. We have grieved Your Holy Spirit. We confess to You, Lord, all our past unfaithfulness. The pride, hypocrisy, and impatience in our lives; our self-indulgent appetites and ways, and our exploitation of other people, our anger at our own frustration and our envy of those more fortunate than ourselves, our intemperate love of worldly goods and comforts, and our dishonesty in daily life and work; our negligence in prayer and worship and our failure to commend the faith that is in us.
Accept our repentance, Lord, for the wrongs we have done. For our blindness to human need and suffering, and our indifference to injustice and cruelty, for all false judgments, for uncharitable thoughts toward our neighbors, and for our prejudice and contempt toward those who differ from us, for our waste and pollution of Your creation, and our lack of concern for those who come after us.
AMEN
2 comments:
Tara, I started to write a comment on this entry but it started to get really really long so I decided to post my response as a blog on my site (www.bethstedman.com). Thanks for how you inspire me to think and grapple with things. I love you, my friend.
I need to pray this prayer using "I". It perfectly describes me.
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