Walter Brueggemann has a gift to bring hidden thoughts of the soul to light before God. Over the course of this fall, I wanted to share Walter Brueggemann with you every Wednesday from his book, Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth. I believe his prayers, his words, are laden with wonder. The wonder of honesty. The wonder of trust. The wonder of love. The wonder of beauty.
You’re invited to join us for Wednesdays with Walter as we dive deeper in our relationships with God and with each other. [Tweet this]
Read through the poem below silently. Recite it aloud. May this become our prayer today and every day as we grow in trusting God:
We tell these stories
———about being hungry and thirsty
———and frightened and angry
———and desperate.
And then we tell stories
———about your food and your water
———and your presence.
But the second half of the story
———does not ring powerfully true in our own experience,
———so much so that we find ourselves
———and our whole beloved community
———are often pilgrims in a barren land;
———and we find our sophistication and our affluence
———does not at all treat our condition of wilderness.
So finally we are driven back to you,
———about to receive and then drawn up short
———by the One who has nowhere to lay his head either.
We are bold to pray for your gifts
———and for your presence
———but we do so prepared to endure a while longer
———our thirst and our hungry and our sense of absence
———because we have resolved to be on your way with or without you.
Amen.
Lord, give us the strength and the courage to step out in bold trust. May we hold tight to your promises today. Amen.
What promise of God are you holding on to today?
Pick up a copy of Walter Brueggemann’s Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth, from Amazon, here.
