A prayer of repentance for driven-ness & busyness

This is just magnificent and just what I and our culture needs to hear and pray. You can read the original here

Why not start Tuesday 18th September with this prayer

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us.
1 John 4:18-19

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”
Heb. 13:5

“Be still, and know that I am God.”
Psalm 46:10

Gracious Father, I begin this day with a desire to live much less of a driven life and much more of a called life. In essence, I want to live with less fear and more freedom, less by frenzy and more by faith, with fewer obsessions and with much more adoration of you, the God of all peace.

As I get older I just don’t have as much energy to juggle as many balls or spin as many plates as I used to. This is simultaneously a humbling thing and a good thing. For if greater grace comes to the humble, then accepting my limitations is essential for my liberation. Lord, I believe, help my unbelief!

It’s not difficult to see how driven-ness and busyness are rooted in fear and pride—the fear of not being enough and having enough, the fear of losing face and losing control, the fear of missing the mark and missing out; the pride of man’s approval and cultural competency; the pride of being relevant and wanted. Only the gospel can free us to acknowledge these things. Only your grace can keep us from falling into self-contempt and the emptiness of self-resolve to be different.

Come, Lord Jesus, come. Your perfect love alone can liberate us from our posing, performing and perfectionism. Drive out our fears by a greater grasp of your grace. You lived a life of perfect obedience for us as the second Adam, fulfilling everything God requires of us. You died a death of perfect love for us as the Lamb of God, exhausting God’s judgment against our sin. Your resurrection from the dead on the third day is the firstfruits and guarantee that one Day we will be as lovely as you and as loving as you. What a glorious Day that will be!

Indeed, one Day we will be made perfect in love, all because of you, Lord Jesus, for perfection can only be found in you. We love you because you first loved us and continue to love us with a steadfast and impassioned love. May your perfect love continue to drive all pernicious fear from our lives. So very Amen we pray, in your glorious and grace-full name.