What I Prayed For on My 22nd Birthday

I usually go to the morning service of my church, often so that I can assist/teach a class in the afternoon Sunday school. Not today. The night before, I had been told that I could take a day off, so I decided to go to the afternoon service instead.

Other considerations were in mind, but the main one was so that I could pick up a spiritual discipline I'd been neglecting for a while: journaling. Somehow, the fatigue that I contracted from completing a yearlong journaling project in 2016 (which you can read here) still persisted, hence the creeping laziness and reluctance to write journal entries on a regular/daily basis. However, with all the happenings in my life lately, I felt the need to vent out all of them with my own handwriting. Hence, after waking up a bit later, reading the Bible passages from my plan and taking a shower, I untied my string-bound faux leather brown journal and opened the last written page. The most recent entry dated almost half a year ago, but it felt like forever.

With a pen in hand, I had a hard time choosing the right words to articulate what's in my mind. After struggling for almost fifteen minutes on the first two paragraphs, I poured out the occurrences of the last few months without reserve, commenting and recounting ruthlessly on every single detail that caught my attention and drew up my emotional response. The result is a brutally honest 1.5 A5 pages of recount and reflection on major things that happened in my 21st year on this earth. This entry, as you may guess from the title of this post, culminates in a page of a written prayer that I penned to God from the bottom of my heart. It is this prayer that I want to share with you. I observe that during birthdays, most people wish for the person's wellbeing, some ask for his/her prayer points, and few pray with the birthday boy/girl. God blesses me with a lot of people that do the third in my friends' birthday and mine. Through this occasion of praying together with the now older person, I get an insight into his/her spiritual maturity and on how Christians ought to pray communally, which in turn helps me with my own prayer life. This blessing I wish to share with you who read it, that you may desire more for God's presence and joy in your own prayer life. Now, join me in prayer to the living God: Lord, [my Father in the heaven,] it has been 22 years since You put me on this earth. It took [me] 14 years and 356 days to finally accept you as my Lord and Savior while You'd [been sustaining] me [during] those rebellious, wicked days. Now it has been 7 years and 9 days of my seeing Your love being poured out upon my life day by day, although since my repentance I have also been committing countless sins and transgressions, not living with You as my Lord but with me as mine. You lift up those weights of sin day by day again, no matter how often I [naturally] prefer to pick them up, and now as I write this prayer I live as a free man without burden but one: to love You, to serve You, and to glorify You through my own love for, service to, and putting others ahead of myself. By reflection I have seen Your grace and mercy all the more clearly again, something I have not [been doing] so for a while. So, on the day You've led me to 11+11 years (HAHA, thanks for making me this witty), I pray that I may live more like Christ. I pray that I may see Your glory more and more clearly that You fill me overflowingly to the uttermost. I pray for the willingness of heart to love without reserve, to care for others, expecting nothing in return, for I have had first everything I ever expect and desire in the Person of Jesus Christ who loved me and gave myself for me. And in the days ahead when I ever go astray, open my eyes to see my faults and give me the power to return to and walk back in You. I know not what the days [ahead] hold for me, O God, but You know them: what the three years of completing my bond will bless me with, which vocation You will lead me afterwards, whom I will encounter, [the woman] I will marry, where I will live, and what changes [and growth] I will undergo, potentially with all the pains and conflicts and struggles. In short, the future. My request is only [this]: that You may bring me to realize Your presence throughout and bank on You as my hope and God. Help me [to] keep sight of Your glory that I may walk faithfully in You for the rest of my days. Here I stand, You are my witness and the Truth, to whom all glory belongs. In Christ's precious name I surrender all, with confidence and in expectation of Your glory and grace. Holy Spirit, complete my prayer and perfect it only in Your way. Amen. May the Lord use this prayer that I uttered on my 22nd birthday to bring you closer to Him in your own prayers. Soli Deo gloria.