Complete Abandon to God in Prayer

I came across a quote some time back that convicted my heart. It was something that Catholic monk/mystic Thomas Merton wrote years ago: “What is the use of praying if at the very moment of prayer, we have so little confidence in God that we are busy planning our own kind of answer to our prayer?”

I want to encourage you to abandon yourself to God when you pray. It's not the mere act of saying a prayer that is powerful but our genuine trust in God when we pray.

I'm not generally a big fan of written prayers, per se; but there's one written by Charles de Foucauld (pr. foo-koe), also known as Brother Charles of Jesus, that captures the kind of complete abandonment to God when we pray that I'm talking about:

Father, I abandon myself into Your hands.
Do with me what You will.
Whatever You do, I thank You.
I am ready for all,
I accept all.
Let only Your will be done in me, and in all Your creatures,
I ask no more than this, O Lord.

Into Your hands I commend my soul;
I offer it to You with all the love of my heart,
For I love You, Lord, and so need to give myself,
To surrender myself into Your hands,
Without reserve and with boundless confidence,
For You are my Father.

I'm praying for you as we journey together through these 40 Days of Prayer and Fasting for Spiritual Breakthrough...