Dear God, let me do more. Let me see how much farther there is for me to go.

I congratulate myself on the small progress I make here and there, yet in truth it is all so trivial. My habits are in order, yet my mind remains unruly. My behavior is not filled with transgressions, yet my will is so selfish. Even as I present a placid countenance, my intentions seethe and boil.

O my Lord, discipline my interior! Burn away this self-regard, this willfulness.

Set me aflame, dear Lord. Grant me energy, let me set about offering joy to all the world. Let this effort crowd out my inner self, this fiction. Let me become nothing but faith, nothing but devotion.

You are balm to the world, Lord. How dare I withhold your spirit? Let me work and work again, harder, to pass on your warmth.

(Letter #1176)

Dear God, how have you already saved me? How indeed have you already arranged the day for my benefit? Let me see everything around me as a gift from you. Let me look and look again, moment by moment, and see your sunlight shining upon me. Warming me.

When I do not see you, it is my own vision at fault. When I feel I am in darkness, it is only because my eyes are closed.

Let me open my eyes to you. There you are, warmly loving me in each instant.

Lord, let me awaken.

(Letter #1175)

Dear God, I sit in secret and call to you, seek you. I cry out for you.

When you draw near, I am exhilarated. The feeling overwhelms me and I want more. But it is a fruitless chase. I cannot force your arrival. Days, weeks become deserts as I search and wait for you, praying ever harder yet without true surrender, chasing after the exhilaration of your presence.

Lord, let me relax everything that is contracted. Let me open. Let me trust that you are coming, quietly, without trumpets and drama.

Let me learn to shun the exhilaration I used to seek. Give me, instead, quiet dependence.

The windswept mountaintop, O Lord, is no longer for me. Let me take joy in this quiet room. Draw near to me here.

(Letter #1174)

Dear God, let me listen for you today. I distract myself with my own thoughts. I inwardly pursue my individual aims wherever they take me. My thoughts go so far afield.

Lord let my thoughts center on seeking you. Let me not distract myself.

Thy will be done today.

(Letter #1173)

Dear God, I am like a pond with no outlet, thinking of myself and my petty concerns. I seek your strength, yet for such small things. What a misuse of this time, of this earthly body. I seek merely to survive, to improve my position – Lord, let my aims improve.

Grant me supply, O Lord. Bring to me a new view of life and of my place in it. Let me give to others, let me spread your love widely. Let me think of my own needs and doings last. You have always supported me in all things, brought me here, safely. Why, therefore, do I insist on taking my security first in line? If I stand last, if I receive last, then I am still saved nonetheless.

Let my life have outlet. Let me be a source of comfort to others. I will be taken care of soon enough.

Let others stand before me in line.

(Letter #1172)

Dear God, I consider the day ahead.

Please divorce my thoughts from selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. Let me have true concern for others, let me be fully honest, let me not be envious, let me have true and deep faith.

The day towers ahead of me, and as I look ahead I feel so many fears. Of what do they consist? Simply, anxiety over having obligations. I wish to sit idle, rest without requirement – so every duty therefore feels insurmountable.

Lord, let me have energy. Fill me with industry and willingness. Thy will be done.

(Letter #1171)

Dear God, thank you, O Lord, for drawing near to me. For so long I have sought you and pursued you with desperation. Never did I find you. I look back and see now that it is you who found me.

I am sorely tempted to attribute my faith to effort on my part, to my persistent prayer, to my daily attempt to live as you would have me do. In truth, these attitudes are prideful and false. I cannot say I hold faith due to any special virtue – no, you snuck up upon me. You came to me without warning, without announcement. I simply realized one day that I believe, and that I had for some time.

Your arrival in my life has no date nor duration. You are here, with me. You have always been and always will be. You, Lord, are my supply, my source, my root.

Let me rise from here and glide through the day blown by your wind. Let me seek nothing, but instead exist in expectation of your support. Take away my pride and selfishness, my self-regard, my self-congratulation.

You gave yourself to me as a gift —the same gift to make available to all. You will come to others. To all of us. We need but open our eyes to see you.

Let me be awake to you, O Lord. Let me awaken my fellows, nudging them with the good news.

You are here! You always have been.

(Letter #1170)

Dear God, hold my hand. Guide me through the day. Take me here and there, to the places you would have me act, at the times when you would have me do so. Let me not cast my gaze forward and forward, into my fantasies about tomorrow. Here, now: keep me here.

You take me by the right hand and guide me. My strong hand. The one that would be otherwise filled implements, tools, weapons even. But your strong hand fills mine and pulls me.

My weak hand is left to the work and I face a choice: pursue mastery and let go my grip on you, or accept your power and trust you to guide my work in all my clumsy weakness.

Let me trust you, O Lord! Even beyond my own imagined power. Let me not pursue mastery but instead dependence.

Let me, Lord, do your will, as simply as I can manage in all my personal weakness. Let me see my faith as all the sufficiency my tasks require. O my Lord, thank you for this sense of dependence.

(Letter #1169)

Dear God, the fabric of my regrets is always made up of actions and attitudes toward others. My wrongs and shortcomings are never the deeds of a solitary soul. Even when I am alone in the acting, others are the objects. Even when there is no visible action, my attitudes are toxic.

How, Lord, may I better have a loving attitude toward all, those two vex me and those who try me? How, Lord, may I love those who challenge me, even when I sit alone in secret?

Shine down your love upon me, O Lord, not that I may receive it but that I may give it. I am subject to selfish and resentful thoughts, attitudes that can only be dispelled through your abundant love.

Set me aright, O Lord. Thy will be done.

(Letter #1168)

Dear God, as I reflect on what is happening in my life, find that if I focus on the here and now I am completely fine. At this moment, there is no real trouble. Yet I have a feeling of unease as I consider what may happen in the future, even as near to me as just a few hours’ hence.

This worry about what may or may not happen later infects my attitude toward what is present now. Later’s worries become now’s woes. All this does, of course, is rob me of any peace of mind I may have currently.

These things, about which I worry later, may not come to pass at all. Indeed, when has what I fear as the worst ever happened?

Such worries squander today in favor of a dismal and distant tomorrow, one which may never come.

God, please let me acknowledge my current situation in its fullness. The fact is that I am just fine here and now. Let me please discern this, accept it, and be joyously grateful for it.

(Letter #1167)