A Prayer about Relational Messes and God’s Mercies
For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. (Gal. 5:13–16)
Forbearing Father, thank you for documenting the relational failures, foibles, and foolishness of your people. It helps me repent of idolizing the perfect community. It also keeps me from giving up and running away from other Christians. The fact that you’ve chronicled just how poorly we love one another is a witness to the steadfastness of your love and the depth of our brokenness. We need the gospel every day— every hour.
These stories of relational madness also serve as a warning and wooing to much healthier ways of relating. That we indulge our sinful nature and “bite and devour one another” (Gal. 5:15) is a sad fact. But it’s not our fate and it’s not okay. One day we will be made perfect in love. Sear and seal this hope upon our hearts, and may it be the fuel for earnest reflection and change.
Come, Holy Spirit, come. Grant us godly sorrow and deep repentance for the ways we hide the beauty of Jesus in our churches by our pettiness, immaturity, and selfishness. Let us grieve as those who really “get” the gospel and as those who realize what is at stake. In a day when the culture is looking for reasons not to believe the gospel, forgive us for adding to their ammo and salvo.
Forgive us, Jesus. You’ve made it clear that the world will know that we are your disciples by the way we love one another. You’ve also made it clear that the quality of our relationships is one of the ways the world will believe that our Father sent you to be the Savior of the world (John 17:20–23). No wonder they remain unconvinced.
Bring the power of the gospel to bear upon our shared and broken life in the body of Christ. Grace doesn’t free us to love poorly but to love generously, extravagantly, in keeping with how Jesus loves us. Grace is not a green card for self- indulgence. It’s our only hope for serving one another in love. We pray in your holy and loving name.
Amen.