Sunday AM Prayer March 10, 2024
Dear God Who Loves The World,
I mean, that’s a really big deal, God. And it includes me. Even me, right? You love even me? Well now, that helps to remember. Even though all the evidence suggests I’m sporadic in my love for you, or at least showing my love for you. But you are the one who redefines what love is, what it looks like, and how it moves and operates and changes things from the inside out. Even me. Love is your operating principle, your purpose, your mission. How come it’s so easy to, well, complicate that! If love for the world is your motive, your very nature, help me get caught up in it. Especially when I’m all up in my head about it. I mean, you created us to think critically. You gave us brains for a reason, and I am so grateful to wrestle with big concepts and the reality of the world. And sometimes the gap I step in to preach swallows me whole. The gap in between the reality of your love and the reality of the world – well sometimes it seems bottomless and leaves me breathless and speechless. Grasping at the sides, trying to climb out, and the earth just gives way the moment I reach for it. This work I do is sometimes very, very scary. Because it’s just my voice and your promise. How can that possibly be enough? And yet it is. It’s enough for the whole world. It would seem, according to you, that the universe is rigged in my favor. What with the love- your love – being the whole point. So help me not domesticate this incredible love. Don’t let me tame it, not today. Help me not explain away the mystery and leave people with a to-do list and a pit in their stomach. Keep me just a little shaky in the pulpit or as I hand out the body and blood of your love. Your love made flesh. Stir up my heart to pray to you on behalf of the people I serve with your heart in my mouth. Because all this is about how much you love us. And me.
Help me love my people. My family. Fleshy or furry. Help me to depend on your powerful love acting through me and out of me so I don’t take those who stand in the gap with me for granted. It’s too easy to do, so surprise me with your words of grace, stir up my faith. Or, at the very least, help me keep my mouth shut when I think I have just the right, snappy, or sarcastic thing to say. Help me live into the foundational love you give to the world – well, help me live it at home first.
Your love is enough, I know it it. thank you for thinking of me. And the whole world. Amen.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. God is with you. God goes with you. God. Loves. You.
P.S – Laura Aase here. You are a beloved child of God. I am praying for you.
Dearly Beloved – Here’s your Lent Mixtape song for the day. Jump around in your living room as you sing along! “Maybe it’s cuz – we’re all gonna die!” Happy Lent, 
