The grace and the impatience to wait
In our secret yearnings
we wait for your coming,
and in our grinding despair
we doubt that you will.And in this privileged place
we are surrounded by witnesses who yearn more than do we
and by those who despair more deeply than do we.Look upon your church and its pastors
in this season of hope
which runs so quickly to fatigue
and this season of yearning
which becomes so easily quarrelsome.Give us the grace and the impatience
to wait for your coming to the bottom of our toes,
to the edges of our finger tips.We do not want our several worlds to end.
Come in your power
and come in your weakness
in any case
and make all things new.Amen.
Walter Brueggemann (1994)*
Reflect and Pray…
- What stands out to you from this prayer?
- Where in your life recently have you sensed an invitation to wait on the Lord? Talk to the Lord about the particulars of what you have been sensing…Â
*Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggemann (Fortress Press, 2003), 148.
