Dear God, let me please seek improvement today. Let me pursue worthy aims. Let me seek that my character defects might be removed.

I have many tasks before me, distributed in many areas of life: work, home, health, family, spirit. Let me please be industrious today. Let me not shirk or be lazy. Let me do this effort as a way of offering my will and my life over to your care. Let me uphold my obligations today.

(Letter #915)

Dear God, purify me. Burn away all my character defects; leave behind some semblance of whom I ought to be. Take away all that would offend you.

I am so keenly aware of my shortcomings today. My pride and arrogance, my irresponsibility, my selfishness, my sloth. Lord, let me be willing to behave as if these things had been removed. Let me become willing that I might be improved.

Achieving such willingness does not come easily. My natural state is fundamentally imperfect, willfully so. And while I may imagine myself willing to improve, am I really? The test is to what extent am I acting contrary to my defects? I admit this is not frequent. Much more often, I behave selfishly, slothfully, pridefully. And yet the pain of my imperfection remains my constant companion. When will it be enough? When will you see fit to relieve me?

God, let me accept your timing in this. Let me do my part, and become entirely willing to be whom you would have me be. Take away the defects that stand in the way of my usefulness to you and to my fellows.

(Letter #914)

Dear God, a sense of ease and calmness is on the edge of my awareness. I can feel it trying to settle in upon me, yet it remains just out of reach. As I focus on my desire for this calm, like a cloud it dissipates — and I instead find myself listing those things that cause me fear and anxiety. I replace ease with trouble.

Lord, this tendency to willfully turn my thoughts to my own supposed troubles is a temptation. Like other temptations, it exists to teach me loyalty and faith in you. Such faith in turn teaches me to avoid acting on my many shortcomings.

Lord, let me pass on your love today. Let my faith in you be infectious. Just as I can easily spread rumor and gossip, I can just as easily spread joy and serene faith.

Let me allow that feeling of ease to settle in upon me. Let me not chase it away with my own self-regard.

(Letter #913)