God.

We aren’t sure who to trust and who to fear. We aren’t sure we can trust those who speak for you. We shrink our sense of who you are to the descriptions we hear, to the outcomes we want.

We confess that we don’t know you very well.

We confess that we say, with words or actions, “If that’s who God is, I don’t believe.”

We confess that we’ve trusted and been betrayed by our sense of other people’s words about their sense of who you are, from what they’ve heard.

We confess that, all things being equal, we’d like to know you.

We confess that we’re not sure where to start, and that we aren’t sure we want to do the work of knowing you.

But you came a long way to help us know you.
You went through birth and baptism and death as a way to get to resurrection and ascension to here.
And over and over, generation to generation, time zone to time zone, people have known glimpses of you. In the peace that you have given, in the wisdom you’ve provided, in the quietest whispers, in the most glorious noise.

I ask for us today that we will know your presence and be filled with your courage and be healed with your whisper, “peace be still.”

I ask this though you, Christ, our Lord.

Amen.