Show Me, O God, How to Hate

Show me, O God, how to hate
This wicked world and all its ways,
To hate this life wrapped up in things,
In thoughts that throw us far from you.

Destroy what cannot remain forever,
That I might gain eternal blessing,
Release desires and old resentments,
For cleansing the heart grown hard by sin.

Show me, O Father, how to love
All heavenly truths that lighten my burden;
Let die this seed, enrich the soil,
To grow in Christ from the ground of pain.

My hopes collapsed

Prayer

I cried to you, O Lord, ‘midst smoke and flames,
My burning lips forsook all other names:
My hopes collapsed, my shattered dreams were lost,
And I was left with nothing, stripped at last,
To find the precious Pearl, I knew the cost:
Upon the pyre went future, present, past;
In my full loss upon your grace I cast.

JRMatheny