“I cannot pray after so great a sin.”

And are you too ill to see a doctor?

Too thirsty to drink?

Too dirty to take a shower?

*

It is better to risk being seen as a hypocrite by praying after sin

than to risk growing cold in God’s arms by refusing to.

*

From the perspective of despair,

sin is the end of prayer.

From the perspective of hope,

sin is the beginning.

Christ stands on the side of hope

when he describes the just prayer:

“God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

*

Effing up

is the precondition

for being saved.

Therefore:

Stop being such a pansy

in regards to the effing up.

*

It is not remorse.

It is not piety.

What keeps you from praying

immediately after sin

is a secret love of sin.

You do not pray

because you want to leave a space

for sinning again —

sometime later,

when the pain is less acute.

*

You really want to undo the devil?

Thank God for allowing you to sin.

You now have a blindingly obvious opportunity

to call upon His mercy.

*

You want to conquer sin?

Recognize this:

Every sin is an opportunity to rejoice

in the marvelous grace of God,

without which you would have done

something far more miserable.

*

Do you think Jesus lied:

“There will be more rejoicing in heaven

over one sinner who repents

than over ninety-nine righteous persons

who do not need to repent?”

Why, then, are you wrapping yourself

in layers of self-loathing?

You have become the potential cause of song in Heaven,

a song brighter and louder

than if the entire world had never sinned —

and here you lie in bed.

*

Netflix is insufficient.

Feeling bad is insufficient.

Denying the existence of sin

is fun for about a week —

then abysmally insufficient.

Christ alone suffices.

*

“O Happy Fault,

O necessary sin of Adam,

that won for us so great a Redeemer!”

The sin that cursed the whole world is called “happy,”

and you grow despondent over your own?

What strange powers are granted you —

God, who sings redemption

out of mankind’s fall from grace,

is reduced to a mewling incompetent

over your idiotic sins.

But this is what it means to refuse to pray after sin —

to rate yourself as something infinitely darker

and beyond-help than Adam,

a thing whose faults

can never be happy faults.

*

If there is beauty,

there is redemption.

*

Now then:

Oh my God

I am heartily sorry

for having offended Thee.

I detest

of all my sins

because of Thy just punishment.

But most of all,

because it offends you,

My God,

who are all good

and deserving of all my love.

I firmly resolve

through the help of Thy grace

to sin no more

and to avoid the near occasion of sin.