Prayer: Call to Obedience

Here’s a prayer about obedience from Walter Brueggemann.

A Hard, Deep Call to Obedience

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 your promises
enough to respond to your call.

We pray in the one who embodied your promise
and enacted your call, even Jesus. Amen.

~ written by Walter Brueggemann, in Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggemann, (Augsburg Fortress, 2003, p. 90).  Posted on Consider Your Call. http://www.consideryourcall.org/sites/default/files/CYC-Media/Toolbox/Materials/Worship-Toolbox.pdf