Dear God, I awaken anxious for the day ahead and regretful for yesterday. I worry what will come to pass today, and whether I will be able to handle my trials. As for yesterday, my inner life was toxic and filled with selfish judgment. My attitude was prideful and self-seeking.

Lord, these things are related. It is my inner life that determines outward success and failure. Let me please have an inner life that follows your will. Let me not judge, nor pine for recognition, nor fear for my well-being. Let me have humility and selflessness in my core today, that my attitude may be loving.

Let my inner life improve. Let me think not about outer events.

Guide my thoughts, words, and deeds today. Let me be willing that this may be so.

(Letter #831)

Dear God, many things are out of my control and I am best served by ignoring them. The conditions around me, the outcomes of things, the actions of others – not in my control.

But I have some measure of choice over my actions and my attitude. Today, let me seek to act rightly, and let me do so with an attitude of love. Let me have the wherewithal to deliberately choose the proper attitude.

The path I walk is filled with forks and junctions. I can choose, at any of these, to walk selfishly, to walk away from you. Lord, let me have an awareness of all the times I am asked to choose. Let me walk toward you with purpose. Let me deliberately and consciously seek joy, and avoid worry and despair.

Perhaps it does not feel so, but my attitude is completely in my power to change, simply by virtue of where I focus my awareness. Let me focus on those things for which I properly have gratitude – your gifts to me.

Dear Lord, thank you for carrying me all the times I have been weak. Thank you for the love of my fellows. Thank you for supporting me materially. Thank you for this body. Thank you for these hands to do your work.

Let me enthusiastically do your will today.

(Letter #830)

Dear God, to the best of my ability, I have given up my secrets and faced who I am, and what I have done, squarely. This has led me to make amends to those I have harmed, and become willing to be a better person. I can look the world in the eye.

And now, my sweet Lord, you are my secret. I speak to you privately in the still of the morning. When buffeted by by the daily world, I can take refuge in the knowledge that you are with me.

I do not need to proclaim my faith before others. Indeed, my faith in you is a private, hidden awareness that causes me to stand apart from the world even when in the midst of it.

God, I only feel your love when I am consciously seeking to draw near to you. It all dissipates too easily, as I selfishly slip back into the world.

Let me live a day devoted to you, striving for honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love. Let me be these things. Let me be your servant, quietly and without display. Let me do your will.

(Letter #829)

Dear God, each morning I start praying to you without a sense of how it may go or what I might learn. Some days I awaken with energy and enthusiasm, other days are dull and I drag myself forward. Yet, Lord, you are always there.

Prayer brings a shift in my attitude, even when my starting point is willful reluctance and my words are only perfunctory. The shift, in such cases, may be small – but it is discernible. What more proof could I want, Lord, that you are my companion? I try to draw near to you, and you make yourself felt.

What a gift this is, for one who did not believe.

My dear Lord, let me willingly give all to you. Let me follow your will today wherever it may lead, without thought of safety, comfort, or reward. Let me be still enough to hear your direction.

God, you speak to me through those around me, and you deliver gifts through those means too. Any love or good will I receive from others is sent by you.

Let me be grateful for every positive interaction today, for it is you bringing a small measure of joy to me, your child. Let me delight in your gifts today. Thy will be done.

(Letter #828)

Dear God, I awaken presented with a number of tasks and obligations in the day. It all feels beyond me. Experience tells me this is a function of my energy level and attitude, and not a reflection of reality. If I simply wait, my response to my obligations will shift from negative panic to eager mastery. And back again.

Indeed, my feelings have little actual connection with what is happening around me. There is no explaining why one day I am on top of the world, and another day underneath it. Serenity – true serenity – lies in my realization that the events of the world are irrelevant to my attitude.

Thankfulness is available to me at any time, completely in my grasp. If I focus on all these undeserved gifts in my life, my energy increases and my emotions improve.

At a minimum, I can be grateful for this relationship with you.

Lord, make me thankful today. Let gratitude open my eyes to how illusory my troubles really are. They are not even troubles! They are just clouds in the sky that come and go, leaving shadows.

(Letter #827)

Dear God, you watch over me all the day, every day, even when I am not aware of it. I feel your spirit during my time alone with you, why do I not trust you are with me other times? Caught up in the anxiety of the moment, I behave as if all depended on me. Lord, let me bring the faith I feel right now into all encounters throughout the day.

Let me have gratitude! I have not yet in my life come upon a situation that was beyond me. You have provided all I need in all cases. Let me have a thankful heart for this. The simple gifts you have bestowed on me – none of them deserved – are always sufficient to the tasks I face.

As often as not, the most powerful resource is my willingness to try to do your will. Let me see this as a gift and let me rejoice in it.

Today, let me exert myself in seeking your will. Let willingness to do so be my moment-to-moment prayer. Thy will be done, O Lord

(Letter #826)

Dear God: Contrary action. I used to live a life of selfish indulgence. All was in disarray. I try, now, to have orderly habits. I so easily begin to see rising early and being industrious as things that bespeak my virtue.

But no. These are simply defenses, meant to allow space in my life for me to seek you. I have learned that if I act contrary to my inclinations, then life seems to go better and I have more peace. This is a simple lesson, one more practical than spiritual.

Lord, I have seen you bestow your gifts on the worthy just as much as the unworthy. So often, I am more the latter. Let me please have a deep understanding of how irrelevant virtue is to whether I will receive your smile or not.

You have granted me small glimpses of your presence; these gifts come for reasons I cannot fathom. Lord, let me not see myself as having any special virtue. Let me please express my love for you through labor and action. Let work on behalf of others be my prayer.

God, I have emptied my heart to make ready for you. Fill me with your love, and let me pour this over all the earth. Let me do your will today.

(Letter #825)

Dear God, sometimes I feel my body imprisons my spirit. I do not like how I look, or the state of my health. Some physical problem troubles me. I focus on these things to the exclusion of soul. I allow the physical to stand in the way of spiritual progress.

At times of weakness I see the world around me is that which is real, while the spiritual realm is imaginary. But I know the reverse is true. The spiritual is real. The physical is illusion.

Some days it is such a difficult matter to remember this is so. I act as if I am my body, and reality is the things that happened to it. I am, at such times, only pretending to have faith.

Lord, let me not be so selfish. Let me live my life today devoted to aiding others, in denial of my own physical or emotional comfort. Let me sustain myself spiritually first, physically last.

Even my terminology is a selfish denial of you: “my” self. “My” life. All is yours – let me know that this is so.

God, I am so certain of myself. Remove this pride and arrogance today. Let me do your will today, regardless of comfort. Let me attack even your hardest tasks with joy.

(Letter #824)

Dear God, the road has narrowed. As I survey my inner life, I see ever more defects. Some small transgression that used to go unnoticed may now seem glaring. Every day there is new progress I can make in becoming the person you would have me be.

Lord, so often I cause harm by my private attitude. Perhaps I inwardly judge those around me harshly – and this poisons my behavior.

Lord, let me be accepting and kind toward all. Let me view those around me as your children, as indeed my beloved siblings.

As I separate from and judge others, I separate from you. I deny myself of your love. What a tragedy that is. Abundance all about me, and yet I spitefully pout and starve myself.

Lord, let me view every single aspect of my life today as a gift delivered from you to me. Let me view all — those whom I adore and those who may vex me — as sent personally by you. For me. Let me discern the message they carry. Let me discern your love. Let me do your will today.

(Letter #823)

Dear God, you know my every secret longing and desire. You know my good and my bad. All was built by you and all is worthy of your love. Why, then, do I not pray for those things that will please me? You know what I want in every moment, why do I not name these things to you? Instead, I seek your will for me, I seek willingness to do this.

You have shown me that my greatest peace comes when I am in alignment with your will. And I have learned that growth comes to me out of the discipline of seeking this alignment.

Like any child, I want juvenile gratifications. Security, more than my share. Status, more than is deserved. Pleasure, more than my due. Lord, let me take joy from growing nearer to you and shedding these childish demands.

It is a mystery to me how it is that overcoming self can result in such joy. Yet this is my experience. This is what you have shown me.

Lord, let me be willing, today, to do your will in all things. Let me place all my plans and tasks behind this one goal: to be nearer to you.

(Written this morning, 4/1/2017 #822)