A Sinner's Prayer for Compassion

“God…we are all broken.  We have all fallen short and continue to fall short long after our saving moment.  Because of this, though a feeling of deep unworthiness overcomes my emotions, I dive headfirst into your amazing grace again today.  At one point, we were all brought to a place of humility and showed us the dirtiness of our own sin.  So we stepped forward and received this amazing grace.  But like the Pharisees you came to passionately humble, there is a strong spirit of religion, pride and self righteousness that is still strong in this same body of believers.  We have created a hierarchy of “righteousness” that can be neatly fit into a series of sin categories rated from passable to failed; all structured by us.  So as I witness this in myself, and as I experience this strong force against me in times of my own failings, I pray that you would keep me from becoming a judge of the judgers.  I need your grace and humility to overcome my own feelings of strong emotion.  Help me to realize the lesson to those in Matthew 7:3-4 that says:

3"Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4"Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' and behold, the log is in your own eye? 

Help me realize this is speaking of us ALL. God, I know we each have a plank in our own eye.  None of us have mere sawdust.  We have all fallen so short.  Help those that hide secret sins and use their outward self-righteous pride to hide these things.  Help them to know that you long for them to break free from addictions and the sewage that hides in the dark corners of their hearts.  Help them realize that you have a plan to turn their sickness into health; their bondage into freedom.  I pray for the men that judge the homosexual and yet give their minds and bodies and relationships to a sexually abused woman on their computer screen.  The lie they have bought into that they are “working on it” and haven’t given themselves over to it like a homosexual has in their chosen lifestyle.  As though a 10, 15, 20, 30 year hidden struggle with deep rooted lust and porn is any less of a lifestyle.  God, we have been tricked for so long.  Help your people to realize that your conviction is not for the purposes of burdening us with guilt, but rather to help us turn from the bondage anchored in these sins and the miserable, hopeless feeling of having to perform for those inside the church walls.  These very performances are what keep you out of our hearts, out of our lives and keep those that need you, out of your beloved body.  These performances keep us from dealing with the hidden parts of our hearts, from seeking help from those fellow broken brothers and sisters that must pretend they aren’t broken anymore.  God, we have reached a sad and startling state when the brokenness that once drew us near to you is now pushed aside as though it never existed.  We have found righteousness in our own deeds; affirmation in the eyes of our peers rather than the eyes of you.  Help your people realize that failings actually set us free and expose us for what we are…mere sinners.  Help us not make choices based on who looks best to walk with.  That we would see there is a difference between condoning sin and merely walking the long walk of peaks and valleys with a fellow brother or sister.  Give us grace God.  Help us see one another as we would our own children.  And not the parent that shuns a child who gets pregnant.  The one that can stand by them, love them and support them as the dozens of other peers and parents that (just happened) to barely miss joining egg and sperm from their own sexual encounters, point fingers at their child and mock and gossip openly.  Give us grace God.  Help us to be the parent that would never kick out a child because they struggled with their sexuality or believe that somehow this exclusion will bring them back into a state of awakening.  Help them to realize that you never leave us nor forsake us.  You are the God of a broken world and you see the complexities of life.  You see the boy that was molested by another man at a pivotal age during their sexual growth. You see the grown man that first experienced arousal while looking at his first pornographic video at a young, young age.  You see the girl who filled a sexual void by the absence of a loving father.  You see the harsh realities of broken marriages.  You see the pain and hurt that exists in broken relationships.  You desire us to be set free so we can live in pure joy.  Thank you God for my failings.  Though extremely hard, they have opened the doors of my heart for all to see.  My sin has been laid bare before me and before my peers.  You have taken me from the wreckage of my hurt and dread and have been the lifter of my head when no one else would stand with me.  You are the reason I praise.  You are the reason I so easily share my faith with those that would pursue you through a friendship with me.  Like the worker of the vineyard Matthew 20:1-16 that comes on at the 11th hour, we have all been given far more than we deserve. 

^1-2 “God’s kingdom is like an estate manager who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. They agreed on a wage of a dollar a day, and went to work.^3-5 “Later, about nine o’clock, the manager saw some other men hanging around the town square unemployed. He told them to go to work in his vineyard and he would pay them a fair wage. They went.^5-6 “He did the same thing at noon, and again at three o’clock. At five o’clock he went back and found still others standing around. He said, ‘Why are you standing around all day doing nothing?’⁷ “They said, ‘Because no one hired us.’“He told them to go to work in his vineyard.⁸ “When the day’s work was over, the owner of the vineyard instructed his foreman, ‘Call the workers in and pay them their wages. Start with the last hired and go on to the first.’^9-12 “Those hired at five o’clock came up and were each given a dollar. When those who were hired first saw that, they assumed they would get far more. But they got the same, each of them one dollar. Taking the dollar, they groused angrily to the manager, ‘These last workers put in only one easy hour, and you just made them equal to us, who slaved all day under a scorching sun.’^13-15 “He replied to the one speaking for the rest, ‘Friend, I haven’t been unfair. We agreed on the wage of a dollar, didn’t we? So take it and go. I decided to give to the one who came last the same as you. Can’t I do what I want with my own money? Are you going to get stingy because I am generous?’¹⁶ “Here it is again, the Great Reversal: many of the first ending up last, and the last first.”

Those that feel they deserve more because they have done more “work” for the Kingdom will only be frustrated by the fact their efforts have been for their own prideful gain because the reality is we are all the 11th hour workers.  We all barely fall into your Kingdom.  And we only do so by your grace.  So help those that are frustrated that they might see your purposes are beyond our perceptions of what we think things ought to be.  Give us grace.  Give us insight.  Give us your eyes to see a broken world the way you see it.  Give us hope.  Give us you…”