Prayer for a Pharisee

It's Afternoon, Jesus
There you are, seated at the right hand of God the Father.
Teach me more about love, tonight.
Tonight, I am very judging.
A critical spirit attempts to seize my soul.
I am attacked by hurts and fears from my past
That I want to project onto others.
I am bombarded with harsh, shrill and critical voices I hear in my head.
I need tonight your mercy, Lord.
I need tonight for you to send angels and instruct me in love.

I confess to you that I am impatient.
Then I hear you say: "The answer, Greg, is love. Love is patient."
I confess to you that a spirit of unkindness attempts to arise in me and judge harshly tonight. I hear you say: "Love is kind."
I confess to you that I envy the young and mourn my loss of youth.
Yet again you say: "Love, Greg, love. Love does not envy."
So I search your wisdom. I search for that for which love is not the cure.
I go deeper in my soul and I cry: "I am sometimes boastful, Lord. When I feel attacked or a little loss of esteem, I sometimes boast to boost myself up.
And you say: "Love does not boast." "Love yourself", you say. "You cannot love your neighbor as you love yourself if you do not love yourself."
Love, Greg, Love.
So I go on. I tell you quickly..."ok Lord. I am sometimes proud and rude and self seeking." And you tell me as quickly. "Love is still the answer.Love is not proud, it is not rude, it is not self-seeking."
Is love really all of that, I wonder? Is love really a cure for these various kinds of diseases? What about anger? What about that deep hurt I experienced in the past when I was forsaken by one I loved and faithfulness was not present?
And still you say: "Love,Greg. Love is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs."
"But, Lord", I say.
"Surely there is something for which love is not a cure.
Can love cure outright rebellion? Can love cure the hardest heart like Pharoah?
Can love cure the Roman soldiers who drove those nails? Can love cure Judas? Ha! Is not Judas, Lord, the proof of love's own betrayal? He betrayed you with a kiss?"
And you say: "Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth." "Do not delight, Greg, in those insances where evil seems to win. Delight in the cross where the longsuffering of love conquers all. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it."
But what if the truth, Lord, is sin?
What if the truth is that someone is living in sin?
Then you say: "All live in sin." You live in sin."
"Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails."
"But what does love protect, Lord?"
"It protects the sacred seed of the implanted word. It protects the power of intercessory prayer."
"And what does love trust?"
"It trusts that my word will not return unto me void."
"It trusts" "Train a child in the way that he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." "It trusts in longsuffering.
And what does love hope?"
"It hopes for salvation, not fire and brimstone. It hopes for mercy, not judgement. It hopes for realization and revelation. "The anger of man does not work the righteousness of God."


This is a mystery too great for me, Lord.
Teach me tonight, in love.
Help me to love with your love when my human love nears its limit.
Instruct me tonight, in love.