As I prepared for this weekend’s message from 2 Samuel 11 and 12, I came across a beautiful and honest prayer from Walter Brueggemann in his book Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth.

     We yearn, in every season, for your presence
     We know that our hearts will be restless, until they rest in you;
     We are like deer who seek a watering hole in the drought;
     We hear invitations for “all who are weary and heavy-laden…”
                             And approach to you seems ready and easy.
     Truth to tell, we do pant restlessly,
                 but not always for you.
                             Sometimes, instead for security
                                                     or sex and beer and sports,
                                                     or power and success,
                                                     or beauty and acceptance… not seeking you.
     Truth to tell, we know you to be no easy mark,
                 with your rigorous entrance requirements
                             of blamelessness, truth-telling, no bribes,
                             and all manner of neighborliness.
     We yearn for you in every season,
                 making you too easy, imagining you too difficult,
                 bewildered and unsure until you give yourself concretely to us…
                 as you have done and as you do.  Amen.