Our Father…

“This, then, is how you should pray:

“‘Our Father….’”

~ Jesus (Matthew 6:9, NIV)

When I was eighteen, I began my first semester of college with one consuming desire. It was to make myself worthy to have the Holy Spirit as a constant guide and companion. I believed I could do this through obedience to my church’s requirements, which I trusted were commandments from God. I wanted above all things to be born again,[1] to be filled with the pure love of Christ, so I could love others like Jesus. I knew I continually failed at this. I hoped being indwelt by God’s Spirit would allow me to escape, forever, the constant thoughts and feelings of worthlessness and the emotional pain that came with it. By this time in my life, I was desperate—determined to put my whole attention toward this aim. I wanted to be able to love and serve others in a constructive way and do something worthwhile with my life, but I didn’t know how. So far, this aspiration had remained well outside my reach.

In my first weeks of college, I began a zealous regimen of daily, weekly, and monthly goals in an effort to earn God’s favor. As mentioned, I had been taught that worthiness before God is possible through one’s keeping all of His commandments. It sounded right that if I could be perfect for one minute, I could maintain perfection for two, then three minutes, and so on until I was always perfect at keeping, not just one, but all of God’s commandments all the time. So that’s what I tried to do.

With time, it became apparent that my attempts towards perfect obedience, instead of placing me closer to the Lord, exposed just how far I was from perfection and from God. And I couldn’t see how or why this seemed true. I couldn’t keep even one commandment for very long without doing something wrong, breaking another commandment, or hurting someone else—a roommate, a classmate…. I was continually breaking the overarching commandment to love God above all and to love others. My efforts only emphasized that I didn’t know how to love. I was in a hellacious cycle....

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[1] See John 3:3, 5–8.