I keep a copy of Walter Brueggemann’s Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth on my nightstand. He has written exquisite prayers that awaken the bumbling prayers in my own soul that are still looking around for the right words. I’m grateful to prayer-writers who have the gift of thinking well about God, and help the rest of us to speak to Him in words that are otherwise so foreign to our human tongue.

Today, I wanted to share this beloved prayer with you… Perhaps, it is what Advent is really about.

The God who yearns and waits for us

We are strange conundrums of faithfulness and fickleness.

We cleave to you in all the ways that we are able.

We count on you and intend our lives to be lived for you,

and then we find ourselves among your people

who are always seeking elsewhere and otherwise.

So we give thanks that you are the God

who yearns and waits for us,

and that our connection to you is always from your side,

and that it is because of your goodness

that neighter life nor death

nor angels nor principalitites

nor heights nor depths

nor anything in creation

can separate us from you.

We give you thanks for your faithfulness,

so much more durable than ours. Amen.

(written by Walter Brueggemann)