Here is one woman’s response to last week’s sermon on Ephesians 1:15-23. May it encourage you in your own response.

Father of Glory,

Author and Sustainer of Life,

It is you who gives me my life, my breath, my being; at any time you might choose to take me. I confess I rarely remember this, Lord, and I feel that if I did, perhaps I would plead and intercede and beg for souls just a little bit more often, just a little bit more intensely. That I would feel more the need to ask your Spirit to redeem the lost, comfort the weary, and bring back the stray.

There is no time like the present, and I confess to you, Father, my ‘present’ is often full of other thoughts than the spreading of your glory in this way.

Lord, forgive me for my prayerlessness.

Forgive me for my lack of urgency, my absent compassion and my unconcern. Even to submit and surrender to you in this task, is a thing that you must do, for I cannot. I have tried, O Lord! I have tried and I have failed. As you declare me to be the apple of thine eye, O Lord, take care that this little one does not grow old and brown in prayer.

Therefore, O my great God, enlighten my heart.

Would you, O Lord? Enlighten my heart, and illuminate this hope that you have called me to, this great expectation of promise that you have purposed and planned for me to grasp. Make it bright and clear to me; fix it firmly before my very eyes.

Your power is great, O mighty God! Vast, triumphant, magnificent and beyond my understanding. O Lord, help me to know it! Might the truth of your glory overwhelm me and bring me to my knees? Might it cause me to fall in adoration, in wonder, in humility, in anticipation, in gratitude, and in great surrender? O Holy Spirit! I cry that you do this mysterious work in me. And when temptation begins to torment me, and when the enemy tells me to despair, O Lord, you must take captive my mind and bring to my memory this forgiveness I have been lavished with. Cause me to remember that dark moment upon the cross, and how this moment did not end in death but rather with abundant power and victory that sprung life back up from the grave. Give me the deep knowledge that you have rescued me, adopted me, and brought me into the very strong arms of you – my Father of glory.

And O Lord, as you do this great miracle in me, might you do this same great miracle in them? For your beloved ones, for your chosen ones. For my brothers and my sisters; those you are transforming right alongside me. Show them, cause them, heal them. Bring them, too, faithful Lord, into the light of your presence.

Father of glory, by the power of your Holy Spirit, we are choosing to set our minds on you, we are choosing to set our hope in you, and we are choosing to set our dreams on you.