God.

Isaiah describes buds and flowers and singing hills and clapping trees, and people walking into the middle of it with joy and peace.

And we think about it for a moment and say, “That would be nice.”

We sigh.

And then we turn from the Bible app to the Facebook app and we are lost in the worry and the comparisons and the expectations and the condemnation.

We take barely a moment to consider the words you speak before we are inundated with other words, other images, other noise.

God, I cannot fix all the problems I see, all the noise I hear.

But I can lay down my phone.

I can ask you to help me hear you, to remember the words you actually say.

I want to be like the soil where your words of the kingdom can grow. Not hardpacked with traffic, not distracted by noise, not self-condemning.

Instead, open and waiting and seeking.

I ask, through Christ our Lord,

Amen.

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Reflecting the readings from Isaiah 55, Romans 8, and Matthew 13.