In unpacking boxes and files, I ran across something that I think was culled from another church’s newsletter a long time ago. It is a prayer attributed to Eleanor Rooseveldt, but I have not been able so far to verify that she is the author or that it is an accurate quote. One sentence in particular seems to me to be redundant, and I have left it as it is, but I have made changes to make language inclusive. I share it with you as a devotional aid as I begin my work at Urbandale UCC:

Our (Creator), who has set a restlessness in our hearts and made us all seekers after that which we can never fully find, forbid us to be satisfied with what we make of life. Draw us from base content and set our eyes on far-off goals.

Keep us at tasks too hard for us that we may be driven to Thee for strength. Deliver us from fretfulness and self-pitying; make us sure of the good we cannot see and of the hidden good in the world. Open our eyes to the simple beauty all around us and our hearts to the loveliness (others) hide from us because we do not try to understand them. Save us from ourselves and show us a vision of a world made new.

 

I am drawn to this prayer I think because it seems to reflect both a realism that says our eyes have to be wide open and an idealism that believes in a future that can be brought into being by the faith-full application of our gifts, energy, and resources. There are always events in our lives that threaten to sap our energy and our enthusiasm. The trick and thing that often eludes us, is to keep revisiting, each day, the vision that animates our lives and allows us to relish life and overcome our pain, our disappointment, our failures, and our fear.

God’s place in our lives is the source of that vision. I am going to try each day to find and lift up that vision. What is the vision that you perceive working in your life?

God’s Peace with Justice,

Pastor Dave

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