I Love Jesus - My Prayer for Watchfulness

(this web page is a journey in progress 8/12/2025)

 

(this prayer is usually preceded with venerating the icons, My Prayer for After Venerating the Icons, the daily accounting of progress or lack of it, and is followed by My Prayer for Repentence, and then the Jesus Prayer until sleep)

 

I repent

I suffer from the sin of sloth

for I am lazy and forgetful and a very slow learner

I know that most of all I want to always be in my Lord's presence, for my gaze to never leave His divine light, and to always be loving Him

And I know that do so I need my Lord’s help for I can do nothing without Him,

And that I must always be watchful and on guard and ready to do battle with Satan

For Satan will come and try to lure me as far away as he can from my Lord

And when Satan comes I will most likely welcome him as an old friend

And choose to leave my Lord's presence and follow Satan and indulge in whatever sinful fantasies he has prepared for me

And after a while I will realize what has happened, for I will be left empty, hollow, and unsatisfied

For I know that only my Lord can ever truly satisfy me

Yet I do this over and over again

 

For Satan will come and place thoughts and images in my mind, invoke memories and prepossessions, and use any and all of my five senses,

For he may use the sight or idle chatter of a passerby, an acquaintance, audio or video source, or reading material

He will use whatever he can as often as he can

 

For Satan will tell me how great I am,

and I will believe him, and puff myself up with pride, vainglory, vanity, arrogance, and self esteem

when I know I should practice humility and be humble, lowly of heart, and poor in spirit

 

And Satan will tell me “did you see what he just did" and I will become angry at the slightest offense

which was most likely unintentional, or probably did not happen at all,

but I will believe Satan, and I will constantly remember it as I plot my wrathful revenge

All this when I know I am to be always meek and forgiving.

 

And Satan will tell me who to hate, and I will hate them

And Satan will tell me how much to hate, and I will hate them that much and more

I may even wish harm and death to them

And Satan will tell my why I should hate them using lies and slander and I will believe him

And even worse Satan will try to use me to pass that hate on to others

All when I know I am to love my neighbor

 

And Satan will tell me I must have more, more, more, I must have more

for I will need it for my old age, or when I am sick, or for my family, or for my prestige

and then I must have something to leave to the poor or to charity or to the church

So I will greedily try to acquire as much as I can

All when I know that my Lord provides me with just what I need when I need it

 

And Satan will invoke memories of my favorite foods and show me menus of fancy foods

And I will want them

and when I have the chance I will overeat and overdrink even though I was not hungry io begin with

and I will be gluttonous

All this when I know I should practice moderation

 

And Satan will show me women and tell me I can have them and I will want them

And I will want to fornicate with all of them

And Satan will go even further offering up all kinds of perversions and depravity

All when I know I should have a pure heart and be chaste in mind, body, heart, and soul

 

And Satan will show me someone and tell me how wealthy, and powerful, and famous they are

and show me all the women, fancy food and drink, toys, and possessions they have

And Satan will tell me I should be like him and I will want to without even knowing what that entails

I will be envious

All when I know the Lord has already provided me all I need

 

And Satan will show me someone and tell me a story about them

so that I may judge and condemn them

All this when I know that belongs to Jesus

For I am only to judge and condemn myself and no others

 

And Satan will place in my mind all kinds of jokes, witty sayings, insults, and slander

to use in idle chatter in order to please others or myself

All when I know am to practice silence and stillness and simplicity

 

And Satan will tell me the things around me are mine, that they belong to me,

that I made them, that I earned them, and I will believe him

All this when I know to do so makes me a thief

since they all belong to God, and none belong to me, that He made them all,

that He giveth and taketh them away as He pleases and for my benefit,

and I am grateful and thankful for all of it

 

And Satan will come to me as an angel of light or some other being,

And he will try to tell me God’s will for me

So as to lead me astray into delusion so that I belong to him instead of God

But I know because I lack discernment of spirits,

That I am to ignore all visitations lest I be fooled by Satan

 

And Satan does this with all the sins and will even play a long game

For if for a moment I put up the slightest resistance, he may flee from me

only to shortly return telling me how great a warrior I am to defeat him so easily

and it is too shameful, humiliating, and embarrassing for him to face me so he will leave me alone from now on

And I will believe him and puff myself up with vainglory so he will have me again

And Satan may withdraw from so that I think I have won the war so that I become careless and conceited

For I know that I can do nothing with out my Lord

 

And all my sinning is very pleasing to Satan and he will try to use me to lure others into sin

And all my sinning is not pleasing to me or my Lord

For Jesus loves me so much that He came to earth and was made flesh and suffered and died for me so that He can forgive me of my sins

For if I did not choose to sin He would not have had to suffer

So my choosing to sin is the cause of His suffering

So when I sin it is like me driving the nails into His flesh

For I readily trade His presence for money like Judas did

And I readily hate my brother, judging and condemning him, and wishing him to suffer and die as the pharisees did to Jesus

But I am much worse than them, for I do it knowing that Jesus is my Lord, that He is the Christ, Son of the Living God

Yet I choose to do it over and over again

 

I am not worthy

If only I could learn and not forget and not be lazy

so that I am always as humble, lowly of heart, and poor in spirit as one could be

Then maybe I can stay closer to my Lord

I am not worthy

So I repent