I came across this prayer yesterday. Made me think.

How do I build your ‘house’ – your kingdom, Lord?

I think I’d find it easier
if you told me to build
a temple of bricks and mortar.
That’s tangible. I could measure my progress.
What is it you want me to build?
You say you don’t live in a temple made by human hands (Acts 17:24)
But you also say my body is your temple (1 Corinthians 6:19)
and that we together as Christian community are your temple (1 Corinthians 3:16).

So it seems it is my very life and my relationships
that build a dwelling place for your Spirit, Jesus.
Today may everything I say and do be a building block
creating space where you are pleased to dwell.
When I meet with others remind me to ask:
‘Would God be pleased to dwell with us in this conversation… this activity?’
And when I spend time and money on my own lifestyle
let me be just as generous with time and money to help
your kingdom to come on earth just as it is in heaven.
(Sheila Pritchard)

Some words of Oscar Romero

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.

The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No programme accomplishes the church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.

We are prophets of a future not our own.
Amen.

Wise and thought-provoking words