Lord, our faith is often very small. The words from our mouths and the words we sing from our hymns do not always match the faith we have in our hearts. It is easy to say words. It is easy to say that we must trust and obey. It is easy to wish we could die the death of our fathers who died in prison chains for their faith. It is easy to boast of great things. It is easy to say that God will supply all of our needs. But O Lord, how hard it is to live what we say. How hard it is to be content. How hard it is to rest in Thee. Lord, help us to be honest with Thee. Help us to be honest with one another. We are all weak. We are all undone. We are all afraid. We suffer the common frailties of man. We can be too serious. Help us to remember that merriment does the heart good. We can be too demanding. Help us to remember that only You are perfect. We can be too anxious. Help us to remember that you may take years to give us what we may want today.

O Father, we confess, that even though our sins have been forgiven, yet their memory sticks with us like glue. Our transgressions have been taken and tossed into the depths of the sea, yet they swim around in our minds, and seem never to leave us alone. Lord, it is hard for us to believe that the death of Christ would wash away all of our sins. Yet, Lord, we confess that our problem is not with the death of Christ, but the problem is with our faith.

Lord, remind us that ultimately our faith does not save us. Also, remind us that ultimately, our repentance is not to be rested in for the pardon of our sins. Indeed a man cannot be saved without both faith and repentance, but we know that both our faith and our repentance lack perfection. The only thing perfect is the life and death of Christ. Lord, draw our attention away from our imperfect faith and our imperfect repentance and enable us to cast our eyes upon Christ, the only one who was perfect in all that He did. Our hope is not in our imperfect faith or in our imperfect repentance, or even in our imperfect hope, our imperfect prayers, and our imperfect love for one another, but in the perfection of Christ. Lord without a perfect and holy Christ, we who are imperfect, would have no hope, but gladly in Him we do have hope because by faith we have his perfection imputed unto us. This makes us glad.

Lord, help us as we struggle against sin and selfishness. Sometimes our hearts are as cold as the chill of a winter day. Sometimes our compassion is as dead as the grave itself. Sometimes, Lord, we do covet. Sometimes, we find sins in our hearts that we do not like. O Lord, if our thoughts were made public, then we would be so ashamed. We would be considered so foolish. You know us all too well, and Lord, that is enough. Hide our thoughts and our temptations from the world and enable us to retain some small amount of dignity.