They say that smells trigger memory and emotion more than any other sensory input. Researchers study this, why you might catch a whiff of chlorine and find yourself back in highschool swim gym or your second-grade cafeteria. It’s all very interesting, the way this might be because of how the regions of our brains processing odor and emotion are close together. However, I’d put in another contender for Most Memory-Inducing Sense, because it’s sound, not smell, that more frequently pulls me out of myself into another time and place. A few years ago, something went *ding* and my mind finished it with an AOL dialup modem. I looked it up and the ding that unearthed that 20-year old memory was exactly the same pitch as that familiar modem screech from the 90’s. Less impressive but more recently, last Sunday’s performance by Usher during the Super Bowl temporarily swapped my almost-40-year-old sensibilities with the emotions of a teenager who had it bad and was pining for a boo.
It’s sound, I think, or the part of my brain that stores music that has the fast-track to my autobiographical information. Songs from Passion CD’s on the commute to highschool, the iTunes singles played in my sophomore college dorm room, the anthems in the Do Not Lose Heart Spotify playlist from our early years of local church ministry. Memories and desires, the things I wrestled with and ways I was growing, the things of God I saw and was learning to see, much of this can be recalled in a moment by replaying the soundtrack running behind any particular time in my life.
These days, as I’m writing articles and preparing for interviews leading up to the launch of PoP, but also as I’ve been stepping into new situations unrelated to writing, I’m revisiting some music from my college days. I’m seeing now the way many of those songs taught me to yearn, to want to know God better, to want to give everything to him. These songs shaped my language and longing as I listened, sang, and prayed with them in the background as I knelt in my campus chapel, dorm, missions trip hostel. They were songs of surrender and devotion, of offering what little I had—my five loaves and two fish, my life— to God and to work in his kingdom.
I’m listening to these songs again as I head towards the end of what has felt like a very long book-pregnancy. I’ve found myself needing help re-centering my heart so, as per the course, I put together a playlist for the new and old steps of obedience (book and not-book related) I’m being asked to take. It’s a playlist of Consecration and Service as I look to direct my longings and priorities while preparing to enter unfamiliar spaces.
Related to this, I’ve said before that one of my favorite parts of working on PoP was writing the prayers in between chapters. One reason is that I’m convinced that for the Christian perfectionist, help is found in the presence of Jesus. I know that words about God, important as they are, can only do so much. I’ve experienced in my own life how God can do in a moment what’s felt impossible for me to drum up the faith to believe or will to change, and it’s in prayer and worship that God has met me in these ways. The other reason I loved writing the prayers was that prayers, like songs, don’t just explain the tension we feel as imperfect followers of Jesus—of wanting to follow but being anxious of falling behind; of knowing him but yearning to know him still more; of feeling you have so little to give in the face of the immense sadness in the world but still wanting to offer what you have—they don’t just model or teach, they give language to interact with God in this tension. (This is probably why I love the psalms so much.)
In prayer, we can express deep conviction of truth, and surrender and devotion, and fear and trepidation, and joy and wonder, and gratitude, and the sense that we wish we could bring more, with what mattering most in the end being that we are bringing ourselves to God. I am feeling all these things right now. So I thought I’d share one of these prayers for you today. A prayer of consecration as you serve in your home, school, neighborhood, work, church, ministry, and world before the face of God. A prayer for those who wish they had more to give but still want to give their all to Jesus.
A Prayer for When Your Best Doesn’t Feel Good Enough
Gracious God,
My soul blesses your name. Thank you for forgiving all my sins and healing me, for redeeming my life from the pit and crowning me with love and compassion. You satisfy my desires with good things and renew me day by day. From every possible view of my life, I see grace upon grace.
Lord, you have been so good to me that I wish I had an offering worthy of you. Yet when I consider what I have, none of it seems enough. Still, in view of your mercy, I am compelled to bring what I have—to offer myself as a living sacrifice.
I offer you my worship.
Fill my days with thanksgiving and my mouth with your praise.
I offer my strength in service to your kingdom.
In my workplace, at home, at church, in my community, and in the world, help me love others with all that I am and have. Increase my love that it may abound more and more.
I offer you my weaknesses.
In my insufficiencies, may your grace and strength be made perfect and put on display.
I offer you… [Here you can pray about any specific gifts, weaknesses, etc. that God brings to mind.]
God, I don’t have much, but everything I have, I give to you. Thank you for stooping down to receive me and my gifts so graciously. Though my heart feels the smallness of my offering, I offer even that to you too—the sadness that I don’t have more to give.
My broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Be pleased to make it yours.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen
Scripture references: Psalm 103:1-5; Romans 12:1; 2 Corinthians 12:9; Psalm 51:16-17
Order Peace Over Perfection: Enjoying a Good God When You Feel You’re Never Good Enough from The Good Book Company, WTS Books, or Amazon.
Editor’s Note: This piece was originally published on Faith’s blog. It has been republished here with permission from the author.
Photo Credit: Jon Tyson