God.

We are here.
You are there.

We are not sure where here is, if we are honest. We watch the seasons change, we watch our parents change, our children change. We lose jobs and friends, we change houses and towns, we find callings and cancer. And we feel lost.

And we are not sure where there is. We point up when we talk about heaven, pointing to the man upstairs, pointing to the sky. But we know that Jesus said he would be with us always.

So we are here.
You are here.
But we’re not sure where you are.

We confess.
We confess that we lose track of who you have said we are.
We confess that we lose track of why you love us, or even that you love us.
We confess that we drift from you, we run from you, we define you to fit our desires, we make you in our image.
We confess that we struggle to be your ambassador, because we can’t remember who or what we are really supposed to represent.
We confess that we do things that aren’t right, and we don’t do things that are right.
We confess.

But we also confess that Jesus is Lord.
And though we are inarticulate ambassadors, you are drawing us back to you, giving us courage in the middle of fear, giving us peace in the middle of uncertainty, giving us home when we wander away.
You love us more than we love you. Which is a really good thing.
You trust us with your story even when you know we speak it poorly,

Which may be the story after all.

That your love isn’t about how good we are but about how good you are.

Give us your peace, again, for today.

Amen.

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Joshua 5:9-12; 2 Corinthians 5:16-21; Luke 15:1-3, 11-32