my first post: a prayer of thanksgiving to God

God,

Your love has been so richly bestowed on me regardless of me and my actions and even during my very disobedience you have protected me from destroying myself and all that you have given me. You have given me beyond what I could imagine. I was blessed to grow up in a Christian home and had every benefit of your church, your word, your love, and still I am ungrateful and have strayed. Surely someone outside the faith is more deserving than me. How could you love someone like me? How could you keep pursuing me? How could you give me all these things and continue to bless me when I am so ungrateful? How do you not strike me down when I sin against you continually.

I’ve lived all my life in Arminian churches. I’ve breathed a quarter century of synergism. I thank you for the great weight that was lifted from my shoulders when I learned that my salvation, my Christian life, my toiling, evangelism, and all things are not carried on my shoulders but are held in your hands.

I thank you for planting a desperate thirsty urge for theology and knowledge of your word in me that I could not fill as I wandered in the desert of our modern churches. Now you have allowed me to cross the river to a land where my thirst can finally be quenched as I drink from the firehose.

You have used so many of your great saints to pour themselves out into me and I am a bottomless pit; I ask for more and I sit idly by, waiting for more. Your saints grow old and die and are not replaced. I cry for them knowing that I cannot replace them. My contributions to your work have been weak and minimal at best

You have given me health and I have destroyed it. You have given me food and I have gorged myself on it. You have given me rest and I have preferred sloth. You have given me time and I have squandered it. You have given me creativity and I have invented evil new things. You have given me truth and I have lied. You have given me instruction and I have ridiculed it. You have given me rebuke and I have forgotten it. You have given me wisdom and I have employed it in other pursuits. You have given me knowledge and I have become prideful. You have given me technology and I have abused it. You have given me family and I have pushed them away. You have given me money and I have wasted it on reprehensible things. You have given me blessings and I have stolen. You have given me sexuality and I have exploited it. You have given me scripture and I have let it gather dust while others have never even seen it. You have given me a chance to minister and I refused.

And yet you pursue me still.

No one is righteous. Not even one.

How can I see something good in me that accepts you?

How can I see prevenient grace that allows me to reason my way to you?

Nothing good dwells in me.

How can I walk another step,

How can I inhale my next breath,

How can the next electron transpire in my brain,

Except you allow it.

God… save me.