Bring Me Back

The following reading works well as a prayer to end a sermon or worship set on brokenness and repentance.

Father God, the one who pursued me…

I repent of my prayerlessness
My carelessness
My discouragement because of flesh
My pride when I need brokenness.
Too many times I have fallen back on my own devices
Seeking things, seeking answers, seeking acceptance
I cry out to circumstances
And the more I seek to do
The more a fall away from You.
I use words to manipulate
To compensate
To demonstrate my own righteousness
I trust my public spokeness
While You long for my private brokenness
Holy brokenness of pride
Where grace and mercy reside
Grace that pierced your hands and side.
Brokeness brings self-confidence to dust
That turns my doubting into trust.
Every hurt that I’ve been through
When I’ve wondered what to do
Brings me back to faith in you
I find in these days, in my fallen ways
That I’m so far away from what’s true
And now my cry is Lord bring me back to you.
Bring me back to my passion
A divine realization,
the days of pure joy in salvation
Bring me back to total trust in your grace
When all I seek is Your holy face.
My trust in self tends to misconstrue
So God bring me back to You.

Prayer for Identity

God sees us as we are.We are being transformed.

Father, I thank you that you have given us a different way to live our lives. We realize that the battle for our lives is really a battle for identity. We often see ourselves as insufficient, cursed and unsatisfactory.

We know that’s not the way you see us.

You see us wrapped in your righteousness.

prepared for your purpose

Eternally important

And deeply loved

How can this be?

Is your love, grace and freedom really that strong?

Strong enough to know us, claim us, redeem us and empower us?

Who are we that you would care for us like that?

Who are we that you would choose us?

Who are we that you would place your holy hands on us?

Enter into our story and make it a part of Your story?

Lord, outside of You we are a vanishing vapor, a fleeting flower… here today, gone tomorrow.

But in your words you say that we are valuable

We are chosen

We are Yours forever.

We are set apart

Help us to live with that perspective.

Help us, as difficult as it seems some days, to live in the love that sent a sinless Savior to a dying world to claim us as yours.