Trust His Promises

As we learn to develop the skills for ministry we have been discussing over the last several weeks, it will be our trust in God to keep the promises he has made that will both sustain us and call us deeper into ministry. This prayer by Walter Brueggeman, an Old Testament scholar, asks God for help trusting his promises in order that we might answer his call to ministry:

You are the God who makes extravagant promises.

We relish your great promises

of fidelity

and presence

and solidarity

and we exude in them.

Only to find out, always too late,

that your promise always comes

in the midst of a hard, deep call to obedience.

You are the God who calls people like us,

and the long list of mothers and fathers before us,

who trusted the promise enough to keep the call.

So we give you thanks that you are a calling God,

who calls always to dangerous new places.

We pray enough of your grace and mercy among us

that we may be among those

who believe in your promises enough

to respond to your call.

We pray in the one who embodied your promise

and enacted your call, even Jesus. Amen.

-Walter Brueggeman