Prayer: Hands-Free Living

W. S. Bowden writes, "Prayer is weakness leaning on omnipotence."

I am weak.
God is omnipotent.

How can I not trust Grace?
How can I not lean on Strength?
How can I not surrender to Omnipotence?

When I am but a bruised reed, I am reminded that He will not break me. When life's fires turn my spirit into a smoldering wick, I am heartened that He will not snuff me out. When I am bowed with depression, embittered by disappointments and distresses, I am called to stay my mind on the truth that the Lover of my soul will never betray or abandon me. It is His joy to build His kingdom with the broken things of earth such as you and me -- lame, blind, deaf, mute, fooled, crushed, woe-stricken, sin-sick.

He forgives sins.
He heals diseases.
He binds up wounds.
He strengthens weaklings.
He redeems lives from pitfalls.

Indeed, when I am the saddest failure, the sorriest joke, the weakest link, I am encouraged to look . . .

not backwards
or forward
or sideways

. . . but upward -- the direction that declutters my mind and enables me to see and hear Christ only, the Light of the world.

So, in prayer . . .

I yield
I surrender
I entrust myself
                 
                    . . . I come today.

I relinquish my tears, bruises, heartaches, wounds, failures, affronts, sorrows, and the like, to the glorious hands of the Maker of all things bright and beautiful and good.

I surrender.
I tender the reins to Him.
I want to live hands free from this day forward.