An Ordinary Prayer

Nothing out of the ordinary happened today
A morning started late, with too much rush and too little coffee
The yawns of Monday morning careening around the room

Nothing out of the ordinary happened today
A lunch break too short, with too much food and too little gossip
The counting of the hours until the day's end

Nothing out of the ordinary happened today
An afternoon seemingly endless, needing to triplicate myself
The leaving of work with inadequacies and questions still firmly in place

Nothing out of the ordinary happened today
A peaceful evening, with too much tv and too little wine
The prayers of the day slowly forming

Nothing out of the ordinary happened today
no grand signs or visions
no epiphanies or catalysts
no loves found or lost

Nothing out of the ordinary happened today
nothing except your unmerited Favor
nothing except your eternal Pardon
nothing except your omnipotent Provision

Nothing out of the ordinary happened today
nothing except for late gratitude
for another ordinary day
full of extraordinary Mercy

A response

A response
(Upon reading the prayers of Brueggemann)
Decemeber 26 & 29, 2006

Forgive me for my disappointment with you
for believing my plans are more efficient than yours

Forgive me for my unbelief
amidst my belief

Forgive me for my inattentivness
to the gentle and merciful ways in which you care for me
protect me
shelter me

Forgive me for forgetting you in my joy
when all my small world is at ease

Forgive me for lusting after things temporal
not eternal
not sufficient
not satisfactory

Forgive me for believing my sacrifice is great
and forgetting yours was complete

Forgive me for my deceitfulness
in believing that any good can come from myself
by myself

Forgive me for living in the world and of the world

Forgive me for my selfishness
for my lack of love for those around me
for giving only my 10 percent, and not a penny more

Forgive me for my unrepentant spirit
for not grieving my sins deeply

Forgive me Lord, for my wandering eyes
and faith-less heart

Forgive me for my impatience with you
and your higher ways

Forgive me for my pridefulness
for believing I can take even
one breath
one heartbeat
with my own power

Save me O Lord, from the perils of this earth,
from the enemy that seeks to devour,
but mostly O God,
save me from my own depravity

New Year's Determinations

Each new year I start out with the same set of resolutions - to read more, write more (this is a good start, perhaps), to weigh less, to be a more faithful and intentional friend, to pray more, to love better, to meditate more, to be more organized, to listen to more Doors and Zeppelin and less un-classics - all the typical stuff. Within the past two years I've come to define resolutions as things that I will attempt and most likely fail because the goals are too obtuse. Realizing the need for a paradigm shift, my vocabulary must also be redefined. Instead of my grandiose resolutions, I've settled on one New Year's Determination - to long more deeply.

Each human being longs for something or for many things - from a skinnier pair of jeans, to friends, marriage, wealth, material possessions, children, prestige, sex, or even respect. All of these longings are for temporal things (although the legacy of children is debatable) and although seemingly vastly different, they can be summarized under one heading - hope. Hope that the lastest diet will work, hope that the promotion will come through, hope that today the love of our life will appear in the produce isle of Publix, hope that someone will recognize our hard work, hope that someone will notice our loveability.

All of these hopes are a displaced longing for intimacy we can only find in our Creator. My determination is to long more deeply for him. You've heard it before, I know - our deepest desire is to be in relationship with God. Holy God in his infinite wisdom lets us feel these longings as a reminder that our yearnings should lead us to him. Not that wanting to be healthy or even owning a bigger house are inherently evil, but they are band-aids to a bigger wound. None of even the best things of this Earth will satisfy unless we are in a right relationship with our Savior.

So, I'll revise my New Year's Determination again - to long more deeply and more rightly. All of my earthly yearnings should serve to remind me that my God is sufficient and supercedes my other needs. I want to long more deeply and more rightly for home. When I go home to my parents' house, my father is there waiting expectantly to welcome me for, as he tells me, I am the apple of his eye. I know the unique light in his eye that is reserved only for me, even when I am begrudgingly treading homeward. How much more is this true of my heavenly Father. He too, is waiting to receive me, in every moment of every day, before and after time exists. In Him I want to make my home.

Old Testament scholar Brueggemann says it this way, "Give us the grace and impatience to wait for your coming to the bottom of our toes, to the edges of our finger tips." Let me long with grace. Let me long with impatience for the world beyond. Let me long deeply - from the bottom of my toes, to the edges of my finger tips.