2023-02-26 A Prayer: All In

O Lord, we fuss, we hold back, we want to give all to You, but obstacles leave us wincing and inventing ironies or excuses. We imagine a foe where there was a friend; we are trying to talk each other down from a ledge; we have simple questions for a heavenly and compassionate ear, for Your ear, alone. See the perfect storm.

Help that simple feeling of being “All in”. Help that modest show of our bare selves, where we are simple and bathed in curious, unfearing, trusting, and inviting language. See us where we in truth are; know our fears, whether at this point imagined or real; help us go full-throttle, but only if it is Your will. This day. This means. This place.

See that man’s warring tendencies do drive mad and do circumscribe the copious affection we wish simply to entrust. Our words, when they seem immodest or borne in frustration, are words for You to discount, and our praises are praises for You to remember. We feel we’ve run the gamut a few times, yet who knows if today isn’t our first chance at being heard. By someone out there. Who matters. And indeed we rejoice if today we can be the plain-spoken, and simply-penitent. For someone “out there” to hear, or for our own state of mind.

We live near to the simple trust and the lack of artifice. We live near to the getting along that isn’t too hopped up by previous rejections, too quick to unlisten, too quick to try to cut the hatred, real or imagined, out of our line of sight. Help us know Your Scriptures for what they are, knowledge and truth and plain-speech. Help us read the small-print, even if we were at one time we tried to self minister. Today we allow that word, if it is real, to penetrate our hearts.

We pray all this in Your Name, Amen.