Holy and gracious creator God, we know you are all-knowing and all-present. We also know, but keep forgetting, that you are God and we aren’t. We all, every last one of us, fall short of your glory over and over again. And so ever since the Garden of Eden we have been trying to play a silly game of hide and seek with you.
Many of us have been taught to fear you. We cut our spiritual teeth on images of you as a judgmental Big Daddy who knows our every thought and action. We have stories in our heads from Scriptures where you are bent on revenge against your enemies and sinners like us.
And so we lie to ourselves, to others, and to you. We project pretty pictures of ourselves as already sanctified and permanently cleansed of all our unrighteousness. But we know better, and we know you know better too. And so we waste so much time and energy pretending to be saints when we are all sinners. We try to hide the dark side of our nature even though the Psalmist has told us that there is nowhere, not even in hell that we can hide from your presence.
Even though you sent Jesus to teach us the truth that sets us free, we still often do not have ears to hear the good news. It seems too good to be true that in spite of our faults and shortcomings you still love and adore us–that you still call us when we are tired and heavy laden to come and rest in the arms of your grace.
And the wildest part is that you commission fallible human beings like us to stop hiding our lights under a bushel. You call us, not to save the world, but to simply reflect your light into our small corner of your creation. Your light can shine through the cracks in us if we let go and allow you to use us. Help us, O God, to share in our words and deeds the heavenly message of love, truth, and justice to the neighbors you give us. Open our eyes to recognize our common humanity with all of your children, the oppressed and the oppressors alike.
So for now we just want to say thank you for your amazing grace, and we pray for the humility and courage to hear the Master’s voice, to come out of hiding and follow him. And to that end we offer again the prayer he taught us to say,
Northwest UMC, Columbus, OH
Peacefully Harsh 
Such a lovely prayer. Amen.