10 things I’m praying for this Advent…

Advent season is here, and I offer this re-print from an earlier year.  I’ll share later this week, from Germany where I’m teaching this week.

A favorite listen for this season comes from Sara Grove’s Live Prison tour music, –  I listen to Sara sing, “Star of Wonder, star of light, star of royal beauty bright…guide us…o guide us…o guide us.”

With Sara, I call out in prayer to our Lord this Christmas season – guide us – o guide us:

1. to be quick to confess sin and slow to accuse

2. to be quick to listen and slow to pontificate

3. to compassion, not cynicism; to hope not resignation

4. to wisdom and peace

5. to generosity (the sacrificial kind) and laughter

6. to see with the eyes of faith

7. to love well – honestly, with compassion, mercy, and humility.  With truth telling, and courage as well.

8. through the mazes of confusion and consumerism, lust and fear, loneliness and discouragement, that so easily oppress us.

9. into the best, very best use of the precious moments that are our days, for there is no activity in the grave where we’re going.

10. so that, little be little, we become more like you Jesus.

I think, in this season of withdrawing and leaning into our longings, of the words of my friend Dietrich Bonheoffer: “Unless we have the courage to fight for a revival of wholesome reserve between man and man, we shall perish in an anarchy of human values… . Socially it means the renunciation of all place-hunting, a break with the cult of the “star,” an open eye both upwards and downwards, especially in the choice of one’s more intimate friends, and pleasure in private life as well as courage to enter public life. Culturally it means a return from the newspaper and the radio to the book, from feverish activity to unhurried leisure, from dispersion to concentration, from sensationalism to reflection, from virtuosity to art, from snobbery to modesty, from extravagance to moderation.”

What are you praying for this Advent?