A Morning Prayer on Being Right
Knowing God,
It is exhausting to be right.
It is unnerving to maintain a position in life wrapped up in rightness, unable to be wrong or to change my heart, my mind, and my position on issues or feelings. Why must the need to question or change my mind feel like an utter failure?
How did I get here?
What is it about faith, the way faith is taught, that pushes all decisions and actions to one side or another with a hard stop?
When I make my faith about myself and my ability to believe and follow, I miss that faith is only possible because YOU first acted in my life.
I do not and cannot possess faith like a toy I have taken from another and now hold in my own hands. It isn’t something I carry around in my pocket with a merit badge of honor, but rather Lord, remind me that faith is a walk, a journey, on which there will be times that I falter, forget, and turn away from.
Faith is a gift, from you to me, for the well-being of my heart and mind and body. Faith is a gift that tells me I belong to you, that you have claimed me.
Remind me, show up gently in those moments when I begin to act and speak as if I have the answers. Tap me on the shoulder when I begin to feel I am right or righteous, and remind me of the great compassion you freely gift to me.
Help me move my words from right or righteous to understanding and listening.
Help me show compassion to myself in the moments that feel necessary to be right. Help me show compassion to others. Stir me to search for ways to lift up, hold up, or even carry those who feel lost, broken, unworthy, or scared.
Thank you for these reminders.
Thank you for this grace.
Thank you for the gift of faith that is bound up in the gift and appropriateness to question and doubt and lean into uncertainty.
Calm my heart.
Soften my words.
Let love be the changing force I carry with me on the journey.
Amen
Breathing Prayer for Centering Today
Inhale: Calm my heart
Exhale: soften my words
Inhale: Free me
Exhale: from the need to be right