21 Days of Prayer - Day 9 from Eastside Christian Church on Vimeo.
21 DAYS OF PRAYER // DAY 9
A Prayer of Admission
ad·mit
“confess to be true or to be the case, typically with reluctance;
acknowledge a failure or fault”
Ecclesiastes 4:7-8
7 Again I saw something meaningless under the sun:
8 There was a man all alone;
he had neither son nor brother.
There was no end to his toil,
yet his eyes were not content with his wealth.
“For whom am I toiling,” he asked,
“and why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?”
This too is meaningless—
a miserable business!
“Confession consists of two parts: first, to confess our sins, and secondly, to receive the absolution or forgiveness by the confessor, as from God Himself.”
― Martin Luther (Luther’s Catechism, 1530)
“For whom am I toiling?” This question of why is something that we all wrestle with. We often start something (work, a project, a diet, a new routine) knowing the why, but somewhere along the way that why gets corrupted. We go off course, become obsessed or addicted to the thing, forgetting that we started down that path for a completely different reason.
At one point in my life, I opened a photography business. My why was I wanted to have more time with my husband, my kids, and my friends. But along the way, success got to me, and instead of spending more time with my family and friends, I filled every waking moment with my work. I became addicted to success, a slave to it. I lost sight of my why, and eventually had to find my way back to it, and back to community. During that process, I had to admit to myself, my family, and to God that I had a problem. Like Solomon, I was toiling away and needed to question my actions. Have you ever had a season in your life where you lost track of your why and found yourself alone on a path going the wrong way? Maybe you find yourself there today.
Pray
- Ask the question: “For whom am I toiling?” and ask God to reveal areas of your life where you need a recalibration of your why. It’s OK if you need to ask this several times as God opens your heart to hearing from him.
- Take some time to admit and confess your vices, addictions, and things in your life that are pulling you away from community with God and others.
- Write down who it is in your life you need to admit these things to, as well as one thing that you can do today to take a step toward building community with people who will help keep you accountable and remind you of your why.
