2/95

Maria #258 DO 2976

1. (Mama prays:) Precious Jesus, please help me to love You more.—To be able to really love You by yielding myself to You and by letting You control me every moment of the day, all of my thoughts, all of my prayers, and all of my actions. Give me the faith and the yieldedness—not to just have my own agenda, but to be open and to let You set it for me‚ just like You did for the leadership at the Summit meeting. If they had followed their own schedule of what they thought You wanted, or their own agenda that they had figured out for You, it would have been disastrous, and You couldn't have done the wonderful things You did there as a result.

2. In this situation with Matthew and with my work, I thought I knew exactly what You wanted to do and I felt I was so good and so righteous and I was doing such a great work and I couldn't be disturbed to come down and take care of people and love them and teach them. But You showed me I was wrong. Thank You for finally getting through to me.

3. At least, Lord‚ You helped me to be desperate enough to ask You‚ and You were able to show me what was right‚ even if You had to somewhat force me into it. If You know that we truly love You and want Your will, sometimes You just force us into things if You can't get us to listen any other way.

4. I give You leave to force me, Lord, to make the conditions such that I can't get out of it, if I won't do it any other way. That's how You've had to control me a lot of times, and how You've gotten me to do Your will, because I was so stubborn and rebellious and I wanted to do just what I wanted to do. So You usually had to use Dad to virtually force me to do things that I was strongly resisting, for one reason or another. Sometimes my reasons seemed very good‚ but they weren't good enough to warrant unyieldedness to what You were asking me to do.

5. Thank You for making me do the right thing. I was very unwilling, an unwilling tool, but thank You for giving Dad the determination to make me do Thy will in Tenerife, to do what he knew You were leading us to do. Not only in Tenerife, but many other times when I was very stubborn and almost flatly refused to do things. Jesus, I don't have Dad here now, but please make the circumstances such that I will have to do Thy will, if You can't get me to do it any other way.

6. Jesus, help me. Help Peter and others to safeguard me if I am not able to do it myself. When I tell them what I know is Your will for me but then I try to do something else, help them to honor Your wishes and not mine, and make me live up to those instead of what I am trying to do. Help my teamwork to do that for me‚ when they know and I've told them—or even if I haven't told them and they know what Your will is for me, help them to try to convince me to do it even if I want to go another way. Thank You Jesus!

7. Help me, too, with obedience in the little things, because it's the little things that bring about the great things. The wheels of Your will hinge and turn on the little obediences here and there. When we do the little things You show us to do, then things are in position for You to do something bigger. Help me not to miss Your will in the little things, but to be attuned and obedient to Your checks, so that by my obedience You can move all the pieces of the puzzle into their proper place and thus do the bigger things that You want to do. Please help me not to miss Thy will by being insensitive to Thy checks.

8. I love You and I need You, Jesus, and I want You to completely change me. Create in me a new heart and renew a right spirit within me. Do an operation on me and change me. Take out the stony heart and give me a heart of flesh, a new soft heart which can love more fully, more deeply with Your love. Make it so that I can love with Your kind of love and not what I think should be the way to love.

9. Take away my pride‚ my self-righteousness, my concern with what people will think, my fears, my selfishness. Get rid of the artificial standard and anything that's not of You. That's the worst, the most dangerous thing, this self-righteousness which causes me not to even see that things are wrong in my attitude. It's so hard to see things that are wrong about ourselves, but I really want You to show me and keep showing me. I pray You will pound it home. I pray You will drive it in, so I will get the point, so that I will vividly see it and so that I will be convinced and I won't ever let it happen again.

10. I know that I really displeased You all those years when I was so unyielded to doing things Your way‚ when I had my own agenda, which I thought was best, but which didn't allow enough room for being yielded and humble and soft and warm and receptive to people's needs. I was too interested in getting my work done to the exclusion of everything else around me. Besides, I was very proud, and to be truly loving you have to be truly humble. I'm sorry‚ Lord. I may have had some excuses, but they were not very good ones. Thank You for Your mercy and for not judging me as harshly as I should be judged.

11. Please help me to fully absorb the lessons. I want to make sure I get them and they don't just go in one ear and out the other, or roll off my back. I want them to become part of me. I want to absorb them and assimilate them and become a new creature. I want them to make a big difference in my life. I'm glad I can share my lessons so others can benefit, but the main person who needs the help is me, Lord. I'm the one who these lessons need to do the most for, and they need to do it permanently, a permanent change of heart and spirit.

12. Please‚ Jesus, help me. I'm glad You've been so easy on me and with me‚ but if I'm not going to get it in the way that I should by Your being easy on me, You'll just have to be harder on me. I want to get it at all costs. I don't want You to have to be harder on me, so please do change me and make me into the new creature You want, one with real love and compassion and tenderness all the time‚ not just once in awhile. I know I have had a measure of it, but in comparison with what I should have had‚ I've fallen very short. So please, fill me to overflowing with Your love.

13. Let it be fully Your love and not filtered through my standard, but really flowing out directly to others straight from You. Thank You Jesus! I want to be like You, and I want to reflect Your pure love.

14. Help me not to judge others more strictly than You do, not to put the doorknob too high, not to be so sure that I know what's right. Make me more attuned to Thy checks and Thy correction. Please help me to be desperate. That's the only way I can know anything or find out anything. Lord, I barely get it when I'm desperate, so when I'm not‚ it's a disaster. I've got to be totally desperate to get anything from You‚ Your direction, Your guidance, to hear Your voice; and even at that it's muddy, but I can't do anything about that unless You make it more clear.

15. Please make me a clear channel so that I can receive the right signals and be able to express them to others the way You want them, the way You are trying to get them across. It would be so much easier if You would just give it all to me in prophecy, or in words that You simply dictate to me. But I know that's not Your plan.

16. Please, Jesus, help me to think Your thoughts and Dad's thoughts. Help them to be right. Help me to get them clearly. Please do help me not to think my own thoughts. Help it not to be me. Please, Lord, I can't be wrong, I just can't be. But I'm not perfect and I do make a lot of mistakes. However, when it comes to telling the Family the important things I need to tell them, please, please don't fail to help me get it right. You're just going to have to get through to me. It's Your business‚ it's Your reputation. You will have to do it because I can't see up there where You are and I don't know what's going on.

17. Please give me Your thoughts‚ help me to do the right thing. Lord, You promised long ago that You would allow Dad to speak to me from the spirit world, and that You would give me what I needed through Dad. Although I sometimes wish there were an easier, more direct way for me to get my instructions, it obviously is the best way because that's what You said, so I'll just have to try to be content and You'll have to do it. If You want it that way, You're going to have to really change me a lot and make me a more sensitive channel.

18. I'm sorry for complaining, Lord. Please help me not to complain. Please give me the faith. It looks like You picked the very weakest person of all, one with so many failings and imperfections. Well‚ when I got desperate, You came through and gave me the answers I needed. That was encouraging. Thank You Jesus! Even though the answers You gave me were exposing me, I was so thankful to get them. Even though You were correcting me through it, it was nice that You were showing me. You did lead me‚ Lord‚ and I appreciate it. I love You, Jesus!

Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family