My Jesus Prayer

I stole a prayer from Lazarus, a Coptic Orthodox abouna. I get practically all my information from social media, and it was there that I heard him share this prayer. My heart latched onto it.

Here it is:

“My Lord Jesus, I hunger and thirst for your love today. Fill me with your love and do not delay.”

I began to pray this prayer repeatedly and regularly in my devotional time. I loved the sentiment of it. The premise of the prayer is this: fundamentally, I sin when I lose sight of the love of God. When I live in the conscious awareness of God’s love—receiving it and giving it away—my desires align with His.

Jesus said that the greatest of all instructions is to love God with everything within you, and the next is to love your neighbor as yourself. ALL of God’s instructions hang on these two. Therefore, to sin, at its core, is to live self-centered and self-serving lives. The remedy is to plunge into the love of God, because His love is inherently self-giving and other-centric.

This kind of love doesn’t make me a doormat. For Jesus, lowering Himself to lift others up was always a conscious choice. He did that with His motley crew of disciples. He did that with the Samaritan woman at the well. He did it ultimately and profoundly at Gethsemane, the whipping post, and the Cross—where He was pierced, crushed, punished, and wounded for our well-being and healing (See Isaiah 53:5).

I Hunger and Thirst

So, with this prayer, I am asking Jesus, the sinless one, to fill me with His love. When I live and move in His love, I automatically make choices that reflect Him. The Holy Spirit in me wants me to become more like Jesus in every aspect of my life. He wants me to be more secure in my identity as a beloved son of the Father.

Jesus loved and honored people uniquely; practically everyone who came into His presence left feeling valued—except the religiously proud. I need God’s love here more than ever! I’ve been on this journey of faith long enough to know that I don’t have the resources to do this with my own effort. I need the love of God… so I hunger and thirst.

Today – Don’t Delay

I don’t need the love of God in a general, abstract way; I need the love of God for my life today! If I’m going to think, speak, and act like Jesus, then I’m going to have to be filled with His love—today.

There’s a deep yearning for His love because I am in touch with the truth that I can’t do this on my own. There is also a sense of urgency and intensity to this plea because today is when it matters. Yesterday is gone; tomorrow never comes. I only have this moment to make it count!

Tested

So, I was praying this way and with this awareness—until I was tested.

A while ago, I was among colleagues when a situation arose and I was offended. If I wanted to follow the way of Jesus’ love, I knew I would have to bite my tongue, forgive from the heart, and choose not to be self-defensive.

It was a test. Would I choose my natural response—which is either to blow up like a pufferfish or retreat like a turtle? I passed the test, but certainly not with flying colors!

It gave me pause, though. I realized two things:

1. Love will cost me dearly.
If I want to be moved by the love of God, I cannot respond to hurt the old way. It means giving up my right to be justified. I might never see justice this side of eternity. Furthermore, I can’t go inward in a self-protective way. I have to stay open to the feelings of hurt and follow them to the root so that I can experience lasting healing. That sounds noble, but it is a painful journey.

2. God builds a “love muscle.”
When I pray for God to fill me with His love, He might zap me with the Holy Spirit so I suddenly have a greater capacity to love. Or, He might create circumstances that require me to lean into the Holy Spirit and exercise that love muscle. When I respond rightly, that muscle is strengthened, and I grow in my capacity to love—especially when it is hard.

So, I return to my Jesus prayer. Pray it with me if you think it’s a meaningful, potentially life-transforming plea. Pray it often, and pray it deliberately:

“My Lord Jesus, I hunger and thirst for your love today. Fill me with your love and do not delay.”