Lord, please release in me the spiritual gifts that I need to be your disciple. I trust you to do that!
Prayer journal April 15, 1991-October 10, 1991
I am sharing these prayer journal entries as candidly and unedited as possible… I was twenty-eight years old at the time of this writing.
April 15, 1991
Holy Spirit, I offer to you my will and my allegiance. Lord, I worship you today. I need you. I am anticipating changes in my life. Please teach me and bring change according to your grace. You are a profound and radical God. I repent today of striving and rebellion and ask you to grant me your grace to walk in your Sprit’s guidance.
April 17, 1991
You are the Lord, I believe you want to demonstrate your purity and power in and through my life. Lord, I trust you to give me what you have for me. I know that you are a gracious God. I want all that you have for me. Your word says and I believe that if I ask you for the Holy Spirit, you will give the Holy Spirit. Because of who you are, I believe that means the Holy Spirit AND all that he can bring with him. I want to be a true disciple in life, purity, deeds, word… everything.
Thank you for calling me to preach. Thank you for allowing me to operate in the gift of discernment many times. Thanks for working through me at various times in ways that are unexplainable except that you were using me to touch people’s lives.
Lord, please release in me the spiritual gifts that I need to be your disciple. I trust you to do that! I do believe that your gifts are for today and for me.
May 7, 1991
“He will use in his building enterprises those who love him personally, passionately, and devotedly beyond the closest ties on earth.” Oswald Chambers
Lord, I can’t afford to be tossed back and forth by the wind in my life. I want to be a man you can be proud of. A man of Christ-like character and one who walks intimately with you.
I need to trust you to take whatever comes into my life and allow you to use it for your purposes.
May 28, 1991
These have been identity crisis kind of times. I have been wrestling with my weaknesses. In several ways, I can see the laziness of my character. Holy Spirit, please fill me, cleanse me, claim every room as your own. Put the Spirit and character of Jesus at the heart of me.
As a spiritual leader I know that intimacy with God is crucial. Father, please help me restore that intimacy!
May 29, 1991
Holy Spirit, please make me hungry for you. I have been asked to preach at two camps this Summer as well as a Sunday morning service at my brother’s church. In the floundering and drifting state I feel that I have been in for the past little while, I feel I am very inadequate and unqualified to fulfill those responsibilities. I need to come clean before you. I need to recognize again that it is by your grace that I am sufficient for the task.
There is a great need today for sold-out, red-hot preachers that are men of integrity, passion, responsibility, character, vision, and mission. Not supermen, but men who know how to reach heaven on their knees!
October 7, 1991
Father, please help me today to hunger and thirst for you and for righteousness. Please help me to grow in character and perseverance in my quest to become like Jesus Christ. Thank you for inner peace. It is so crucial and such a strong foundation for my life. Lead me in your grace.
October 10, 1991
I am giving time this afternoon to you, God. Come search my life and speak to me about areas that need to be cleansed, changed, replaced, removed, whatever… It’s all yours.
You want to guide me because you care about my life. Thank you for your incomparable love for me. God, help me with my thoughts and plans. You are beautiful and all-wise. Please help me keep in step with you and your ways. Help me to know what I believe and how to be a man of strong character.
I need a rekindling of my personal worship life. I believe I need to get more foundational again about my private quiet times with you, God. Time and quietness that not only waits but EXPECTS you to speak! Help me, Lord.
TAKE AWAYS:
How would you have coached me as a young man learning to pray in light of this journal entry?
How was God’s Spirit coaching you in your life of prayer as you read about this moment in my journey