God.

We feel disconnected. Isolated. Lonely.

Even when we are with people all day long, helping, serving, working, we feel disconnected.
Even with invisible community connections of chat, we feel lonely.
And when we are away from home, away from routine, away from what we know best and do best, we feel isolated.

We feel far from you.
We feel like Daniel, a thousand miles from home, in the middle of the night, in the middle of a dream, watching things too great for us, things immense and terrifying. We feel anxious.

We confess.
We confess that we see things we don’t understand, and we live in fear of what they mean.
We confess that we are more lonely that we want to admit, but we are less willing to build bridges to others than we could be.
We confess that we hear that you are immeasurably great but we don’t know how to believe it.
We don’t know how to allow that knowledge to change our hearts and change our minds and change the direction of our hands.
To hope rather than always hesitating.
To try rather than always trembling.
To rest rather than always wrestling.
To come into community rather than fearing condemnation.

Because we really want to be in community with others, with you in common.
With purpose rather than pettiness.
With forgiveness rather than failure.
With fun rather than franticness.
With rest rather that restlessness.

God, we want to know that we are part of your body, from all time for all time. And to find our identity, to find who we are, in you.

Through Christ our Lord,

Amen.

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Daniel 7:1-3; 15-18; Ephesians 1:11-23