A Prayer of Repentance

God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

I have been walking away from You, and I knew it while I was doing it. I told myself it was small. I told myself I would deal with it later. Later is here, Lord, and so am I.

I name it before You now — the thing itself, not the softened version I tell myself. You have heard my excuses; You were there when I made them. I am done defending what I should be confessing.

I have sinned against others, and before anyone else, I have sinned against You. You gave me each day as a gift, and I spent some of them like they were mine to waste.

But I remember who You are. You are slow to anger and rich in mercy. You do not despise a broken and contrite heart. You are the Father who saw the prodigal a long way off and ran.

So I am turning around. Not just sorry — turning. Forgive me fully, the way only You can, and then do the harder work: change what in me keeps choosing this.

Break the habit at its root. Guard me in the hour I usually fall. Put people around me who will tell me the truth, and give me the humility to hear it. Where my sin has cost someone else, show me what mending looks like, and make me willing.

I do not trust my resolve, Lord. I have met my resolve. I trust Your grace, which is new every morning. Hold on to me tighter than I hold on to You.

Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and I will not keep this mercy quiet.

In Jesus' name, Amen.

When to Pray This

Pray this when you are done minimizing something and ready to turn from it — not just to feel better, but to be different. It is worth praying slowly, alone, with your own specifics spoken out loud in the silent places.

A Verse to Hold On To

"The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." — Psalm 51:17 (KJV)