Dear God, let me see all the treasure you have heaped around me. I walk through your palace, showered in beneficence, yet I see myself struggle with limitation.

My selfish, grasping core tells me it is not enough. Not enough praise, not enough notice, not enough security, not enough resources, not enough love. Like I am sullenly plodding along a dark pathway, grumbling that I must toil, when all around me is beauty if I will but raise my eyes to see.

Lord, let me become glad. Let me live the ecstasy of discovering I am already loved just as I am, I have enough just as I am. I am your child, chosen, as are my brothers and sisters all around me.

These piles of treasure I pick my way through are comprised of the love and wherewithal you deliver every day.

I have yet to ever lack what I need to fulfill the tasks you set me. Within me is always already everything I require. Let me see it.

(Letter #1019)

Dear God, already, at this early hour, I am consumed by thoughts of self. What will I do today, where will I go today, how will I enact my will today? These are the questions that transfix me. All self-seeking.

Lord, my nature is to be self-driven, my own alpha and omega. How shall I crack open this enclosing shell and lay myself bare to the world you arrange around me?

Shatter my walls, O Lord, and make me vulnerable to every wind. Let me abandon safety. Let me do so willingly, eagerly, enthusiastically. Let me lean forward into the storm, counting each struggling step as an act of devotion.

Let me run at the giants you call me to battle, the famine you call me to husband, the drought you call me to endure. All of it for you.

Too often, I run from the challenges you offer. I hunker down. I present my armor and protect my soft parts. Let me stand, exposed.

The wind blows around me, let me feel it fill my sails. I fear, so I hide. Lord, hold my hand while I emerge.

(Letter #1018)

Dear God, increase my faith. For too long I have held on by my fingernails, believing my well-being entirely dependent on my actions.

May I let go, O Lord. Let me fall into your arms and feel you carry me from place to place. Let my dependence on you increase day by day such that yesterday‘s trust must today appear as nothing.

Let me, Lord, glide from task to task with the knowledge that at each station I will find, laid before me, all I need. Let me trust you, my friend and captain.

God, let my unbelief shrink. Let me recognize my tenacious efforts at survival for what they are: mistrust. Let belief and trust balloon and crowd out my doubting self.

You offer ease, O Lord. Why do I so rarely accept it?

Let me gladly receive your gift today.

(Letter #1017)

Dear God, let me be a carrier of your word today. Let others see your way of life and become interested in adopting it. Let joy spread, and let me be one avenue through which it does so.

If I am to do this, it must be through works, not through exhortation or song. Lord, let me live my existence like a beacon. Let my deeds demonstrate what it means to live as you would have us live.

Lord, you do not require heroics from me. You only ask that I seek and do your will.

In all the circumstances I encounter today, all the people I interact with, let me ask continually how I might best serve you. Let me not be one who proclaims – but one who quietly acts. Let me be diligent in fulfilling your will. Let these quiet works be my testimony.

(Letter #1016)