A Prayer for the Restoration of Our Joy
Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
and uphold me with a willing spirit. (Ps. 51:12)
Jesus, knowing you is a personal but not a private affair. I may come before you alone, but I cannot remain alone. As soon as I bring my longings and needs before you, you enlarge my heart and expand my gaze to see the faces and hear the cries of others. Such is the way of the gospel.
Your words to Peter in John 21 echo in the chambers of my meditation. “Do you love me? Then feed and care for my lambs.” When you feed me, it’s always for the nourishment of others.
Today I’m bringing you a bevy of family members, friends, and colleagues. Everybody is hungry and everybody needs bread. Every one of us is like King David, with stories of failure and fear, brokenness and weakness, heartache and heart need. The details of our stories differ, but each of us needs you just as much as the other.
So I ask with confidence and I appeal with hope, restore to us the joy of your salvation for us, Lord Jesus. It’s your salvation, because we could never, ever save ourselves. Like Jonah, we humbly cry from within our own hard places, “Salvation comes from the Lord” (Jon. 2:9 NIV). Bring us back to the joyful, childlike love we had for you at first, Jesus (Rev. 2:4)— a love totally generated in response to the undeserved, unparalleled, unwavering love you have for us (1 John 4:19).
For your joy is our strength, Jesus—strength for repenting, strength for obeying, strength for hoping, strength for serving others, and above all, strength for adoring you, for you alone are worthy of our hearts’ attention, affection, and allegiance.
The only sacrifice we cling to is yours, Jesus. Only your cross, only the gospel enables us to offer up a contrite heart free of all condemnation, a broken spirit free of all self contempt. And we cry out together, “Hallelujah, what a salvation! Hallelujah, what a Savior!” I pray in your most holy and loving name.
Amen.