{"id":6550,"date":"2013-11-17T16:52:50","date_gmt":"2013-11-17T21:52:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/allandouglas.dougbittinger.com\/blog\/?p=6550"},"modified":"2025-04-21T01:56:40","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T05:56:40","slug":"prayer-searching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/prayer-searching\/","title":{"rendered":"A PRAYER OF SEARCHING"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Calvin<\/a><\/div>\n
God, I have come to church today<\/span><\/div>\n
because I am desperate.<\/span><\/div>\n
I am not desperate outside of me<\/span><\/div>\n
where people can notice<\/span><\/div>\n
but inside<\/span><\/div>\n
I am a dangling bundle of frustrations.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
I am lonely and unhappy<\/span><\/div>\n
and I am torn asunder<\/span><\/div>\n
by the gnawing truth that I am a phony.<\/span><\/div>\n
I have this terrible fear<\/span><\/div>\n
that people will begin to see through me<\/span><\/div>\n
and then turn against me.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Lord, I do not want to be rejected by them.<\/span><\/div>\n
If I confess and repent of my sins<\/span><\/div>\n
help them to be kind and understanding of me.<\/span><\/div>\n
After all, I merely want to be what they think I am.<\/span><\/div>\n
O God, help me to be authentic and courageous.<\/span><\/div>\n
Help me to stop worrying about what others may think<\/span><\/div>\n
so I may concentrate on being your kind of person.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Deliver my soul from the slavery of public opinion<\/span><\/div>\n
so that I may be free and creative<\/span><\/div>\n
in my commitment to you.<\/span><\/div>\n
Lord, help me to deal with <\/span><\/div>\n
my own insecurities and ego needs<\/span><\/div>\n
in a way that would not embarrass your cause. <\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
As I seek to understand myself, <\/span><\/div>\n
help me to understand others.<\/span><\/div>\n
Help me to learn to be patient with their sins<\/span><\/div>\n
as I know you are patient with mind.<\/span><\/div>\n
Thank you, Lord for listening to me today.<\/span><\/div>\n
I believe I will have a good day in worship.<\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Amen<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

God, I have come to church today because I am desperate. I am not desperate outside of me where people can notice but inside I am a dangling bundle of frustrations. I am lonely and unhappy and I am torn asunder by the gnawing truth that I am a phony. I have this terrible fear … Continue reading “A PRAYER OF SEARCHING”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[57],"class_list":["post-6550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-matters-of-faith","tag-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6550"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19138,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6550\/revisions\/19138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}