“And [I pray] that the eyes of your heart [the very center and core of your being] may be enlightened [flooded with light by the Holy Spirit], so that you will know and cherish the hope [the divine guarantee, the confident expectation] to which He has called you…” Ephesians 1:18 (AMP)
Father, Tonight I pray for my eyes again. But not the eyes in my face. Open the eyes of my heart. Enlighten them. Flood them with light. Enlarge my capacity to see hope. Enlarge my understanding of what is possible with You. Enlarge my expectation of what a life surrendered to You can become. Because today You taught me something through my body.
Today,
I ran.
There Was Joy on the Other Side
Father, today was my first day with the beginner running group. Eight weeks.
A coach. About eighteen women. Walking. Running. Walking again. Running again. Learning together. Building slowly. And Lord, running has always felt daunting to me. I enjoy other forms of exercise.
But running? Running has always felt hard. And today it was hard. There were moments when my body knew it was working. There were moments when I wanted the walking interval to come. There were moments when I had to keep going simply because the coach said:
Run.
Then:
Walk.
Then:
Run again.
But somewhere toward the end something happened.
Joy.
A strange, unexpected surge of joy. In my spirit. In my soul. In my mind. In my body. And I remember thinking:
Oh my goodness.
I didn’t know this was here.
I didn’t know there was this kind of reward on the other side of running. I didn’t know my body could feel this. I didn’t know there was something waiting for me beyond the discomfort that I could not experience from the outside. And Father, tonight I wonder:
How many things in You have I not yet tasted because I have only looked at them from the outside?
Give Me Grace to Do the Hard Things
Father, give me grace for the hard things. Not hardship for hardship’s sake. Not suffering because I think suffering makes me holy. But when something good requires perseverance, give me grace to stay.
When discipline is uncomfortable, give me grace. When obedience stretches me, give me grace. When learning requires repetition, give me grace. When healing requires patience give me grace. When changing an old habit feels awkward give me grace. When I don’t immediately experience the reward give me grace.
Because perhaps there are joys I cannot experience from the starting line.
There are strengths I cannot discover until I use them. There are places in You I cannot understand merely by hearing somebody else describe them. Sometimes I have to walk. Sometimes I have to run. Sometimes I have to persevere long enough to taste and see.
I Think My Toes Are Only in the River
Father, when I think about my relationship with You tonight, I have this picture:
I have entered the river, but perhaps only my toes are in.
And that thought excites me. Not because what I have known of You is small. You have been faithful to me for years. I have prayed. I have worshipped. I have read Your Word. I have seen You provide. I have seen You carry me. I have experienced Your presence. But perhaps after all these years, there is still so much more.
More depth. More understanding. More revelation. More surrender. More intimacy. More courage. More obedience. More joy. More freedom.
More of Your Word becoming alive inside me. More of the character of Christ being formed in me.
Father, take me deeper.
I don’t want to spend my entire Christian life describing the river from ankle depth. If there is more of You to know I want to know You. If there are places where You are inviting me deeper, give me courage to follow.
If there are things I have understood intellectually but have not yet lived teach me through experience. I don’t want merely to know about You.
I want to know You.
Enlarge My Hope for Healing
And Father, enlighten the eyes of my heart concerning healing.
I have spent many days praying about my physical eyes. I have asked You for restoration. I have thanked You for improvement. I have noticed greater stability. I have noticed fear leaving. And tonight I ask for something alongside physical healing: heal my imagination about what is possible.
Let hope become larger than fear. I don’t want my imagination continually rehearsing deterioration. I don’t want every fluctuation to become a prophecy.
I don’t want fear deciding how the story ends. Give me hope. Not denial. Not fantasy. Not a refusal of medical wisdom. Hope.
The confident knowledge that whatever this journey contains, I am walking it with God.
Give me tenacity to continue. Tenacity to pray. Tenacity to care for my body. Tenacity to follow appropriate medical advice. Tenacity to keep building healthy habits. Tenacity to keep showing up. Tenacity to recognise progress.
And when discouragement says, This is taking too long, enlighten the eyes of my heart. Let me see what discouragement cannot see.
Open My Eyes to What Is Already Happening
Father, perhaps part of enlightenment is recognising what You are already doing.
Look at these past days. I am thinking differently. I am noticing differently I am praying differently. Fear around my eyesight is reducing. I am recognising improvement. I am learning to listen to my body. I am thinking differently about food.
I cooked again.
And enjoyed it.
I am learning to be alone without automatically becoming lonely.
I am confronting comparison.
I am releasing old pictures of my body.
I am learning not to measure my spirituality against somebody else’s personality. And today, I joined a running group.
Perhaps I keep asking: God, when will transformation happen? while transformation is quietly happening all around me. Open my eyes to recognise it.
Thank You for the Women Beside Me
And Father, thank You for those women today. About eighteen of us. Different bodies. Different levels of fitness. Different stories. But for that period, we were doing the same thing. Run. Walk. Run. Walk. Learning. Struggling. Laughing. Moving forward. Together. And I noticed the joy of community. Father, I want that spiritually too.
I love my private time with You.You know how precious it is to me. My written prayers. My quiet worship. My Scripture. My conversations with You.
I never want to lose that.
But perhaps You are showing me that private intimacy and spiritual community are not competitors.
I can have both. So lead me toward the right community. People with whom I can learn Your Word. People with whom I can pray authentically. People who want to grow. People who will challenge me. People I can encourage. People who can encourage me. People with whom I can say: This part is difficult. And somebody says: Keep going. People who can celebrate when somebody discovers their strength.
People who understand that sometimes one person runs while another needs to walk. And nobody is ashamed because we are all moving toward Christ. Give me community for the journey.
Teach Me to Keep Showing Up
Father, eight weeks from now I want to look back at today. Day one. The beginning.
I don’t need to prove anything tomorrow. I don’t need to run five kilometres immediately. I don’t need to become a runner overnight. I simply need to return.
Wednesday, show up. Next session, show up. Run when it is time to run. Walk when it is time to walk. Rest when it is time to rest. And return. Teach me this spiritually too. Perhaps maturity is not always dramatic.
Perhaps sometimes maturity is: show up. Open the Bible. Show up. Pray. Show up. Sit quietly. Show up. Go to church. Show up. Join community. Show up. Forgive again. Show up. Take the thought captive again. Show up. Choose gratitude again. Show up. Obey the next thing You have shown me. Show up. And somewhere along the journey, I look around and realise:
I can run now.
Something that once exhausted me has become capacity. Something that once frightened me has become familiar. Something that once required enormous effort has become part of who I am. Do that in my spirit too, Lord.
I Want to Taste What I Have Only Read About
Father, there are things in Your Word that I have read for years. I don’t want them only as concepts.
I want to know the peace that surpasses understanding. I want to know what it means to walk by faith and not by sight. I want to know contentment. I want to know courage. I want to know surrender. I want to know obedience. I want to know freedom from comparison. I want to know what it means to truly take thoughts captive.
I want to know what it means to rest in You. I want to know the fellowship of believers. I want to know Your love beyond intellectual understanding. I want to know Christ. Not merely quote Him.
Know Him.
Father, I feel as though there is an entire landscape ahead of me that I have only begun to see. So enlighten the eyes of my heart. And give me courage to walk toward what You show me.
There Is More
Tonight I am filled with hope.There is more. More health to pursue. More strength my body can develop. More healing to experience. More wisdom to receive. More freedom from old thought patterns. More joy. More community. More Scripture to understand. More of Jesus to know. More purpose to fulfil. More life to live.
And perhaps that is what hope feels like: not knowing everything that is ahead, but suddenly realising there is more.
So Father, enlarge my hope. Open my eyes. Strengthen my legs. Strengthen my spirit. Give me grace for the difficult intervals.
Give me patience during the walking intervals. Give me courage when the coach says run again. And give me enough spiritual sight to remember: sometimes joy is waiting on the other side of the thing I thought I couldn’t do.
Today I tasted that with my body. Now teach me to discover it with my whole life. My toes are in the river.
Father, take me deeper.
In the mighty name of Jesus Christ,
Amen.
Wells of Wonder 