Day 29: Bring Peace

O God, you who separated the light from the darkness

You who pulled apart the day from the night

You who divided the land from the sea

You who worked the Sabbath into our chaotic cosmos

We ask you once again to bring peace and rest

To our chaotic lives

We have been pulled apart and need your mending Spirit

Bring peace to those of us who lay anxiously upon our beds

Bring peace to those of us who are waiting for answers

Bring peace to those of us trapped up with air, 

longing for a chance to exhale

Bring peace to those of us in pain

Bring peace to those of us who have lost our faith

Bring peace to those of us who have lost our church

Bring peace to those of us stuck in our homes

Bring peace to those of us stuck in our fears

Bring peace to those of us addicted to that which brings us shame

Bring peace to those of us addicted to that which brings us pain

Bring peace that is beyond our ability to understand

O God, we look without and we look within,

Where can your peace be found?

We have been pulled this way and that

By the competing desires of this weary world

We have been courted by comfort and tempted by fame

And tricked by wealth and seduced by success

And it has all come up empty

It has all been found wanting

Oh God, Oh Father,

Where can your children find your peace?

O God, who brought order to the cosmos,

Bring order to our hearts!

Our hearts are restless,

Our hearts are homeless,

Lead us, light by light,

Homeward bound, 

right into your very depths.

Bring us, step by painful step,

To the center of your beating heart,

That ancient cross-borne hill,

The Skull, old Golgotha,

the dying, dusty rock, 

the root of our salvation,

the bloody branch that brings us life.

O Father, let us witness where your peace is found.

Make us to kneel before your peace’s prince,

Our Lord Jesus, Your Beloved, Your Son,

Hanging with the weight of all that brings us pain.

And in that pain, by his Spirit, 

let us hear the good news once again:

That we were lost, but now are found.

We were condemned, and now have life.

We were pulled apart, and now:

Shalom breaks forth in every heart.

O God of peace, 

make us peacemakers

Until we rest in thee.

Amen.