An Open Letter to God

Psalm 142:1

With my voice I cry out to the LORD; 

with my voice I plead for mercy to the LORD.

O God, 

I am writing this open letter to You for Your glory, my good, and others' benefit. I don't know if I'm allowed to do this. I feel as a small child uncertain about his parent's connotation toward something. But I'm a child to You. I'm Your child. And I need help.

So many times I've prayed without giving a thought to who You are, who it is I'm trying to touch base with. Maybe I pray more to myself than I do to You. O Yahweh, You are enthroned above the highest of heavens! How could I ever attain to Your holiness? Who can glimpse upon Your majesty?

Your throne, O God, is forever.

But tonight I pray that You will hear this small voice, this little child. This month I celebrate the time when Your Son became a baby, an infant who entered the world out of amniotic fluid. You heard that first smack of a hand spanking His skin and the break of His first cry. The cattle may have been lowing, and that baby awoke. And He cried.

Perhaps by some miracle of mercy You will peek through light-years of galaxies to see this little life, this baby. Maybe the sound waves my cry, distorted as they are, will bounce of some corner of the universe and reach Your ears. Maybe it is Your presence here in me - a thought I cannot grasp - that will cause You to listen. Because the only good or desirable thing in me is You.

Father, my Abba, captivate me with nothing other than You. My prayer, O God, this night is that my heart will be drawn to no one other than Christ. At any cross of mine, let me take up His; may I lay down my life to find His, and may I give up my own pleasures to be lost in His joys. I lay myself at His mercy and plead for Your grace. On His merit alone I come.

Change my life. I'm a wicked sinner deserving of Hell. It's a miracle I awoke today, but even before the dawn broke You had saved me today, and Your grace will save me again tomorrow and every day after until days will be no more. Your mercy rises with the sun. And I need it.

Oh, how I need it!

Oh, how the world needs it!

And how will they get it if I don't tell them? And how will I be able to tell them if I have lived today as I lived yesterday and if I live tomorrow as I live today? And yet, how can I change unless it is You who changes me? I need Christ.

If I prove to live for myself and not for You, let me die.

If I do not preach the gospel, take my life.

If I indulge in sin and vain things - please kill me first.

The power of life and death are in Your hands. And the vein of my life is in Your hands. I'm tired of trying to alter drops of blood - give me a heart transplant. Let me bleed the blood of Christ. Let me feel the nails in His hands and feet and cringe at the piercing of His brow. 

And let it cause me to never live another day negligent of the gospel.