In times of waiting, looking, loving, keeping . . .

You keep us waiting.

You, the God of all time,

Want us to wait for the right time in             

which to discover

Who we are, where we must go,

Who will be with us, and what we must do.

So, thank you . . . for waiting time.

 

You keep us looking.

You, the God of all space,

Want us to look in the right and wrong places for signs of hope,

For people who are hopeless,

For visions of a better world that will appear among the disappointments 

of the world we know.

So, thank you . . . for the looking time.

 

You keep us loving.

You, the God whose name is love,

Want us to be like you –

To love the loveless and the unlovely and the unlovable;

To love without jealousy or design or threat,

And most difficult of all, to love ourselves.

So, thank you . . . for loving time.

 

And in all this you keep us,

Through hard questions with no easy answers;

Through falling where we hoped to succeed 

and making an impact when we felt useless;

Through the patience and the dreams and the love of others;

And through Jesus Christ and his Spirit, you keep us.

So thank you . . . for the keeping time,

and for now, and forever. Amen.

Iona Community, Scotland

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iona_Community