What language shall I borrow?

Bow your heavens, O Lord, and come down;

Touch the mountains so that they smoke. Psalm 144:5

 

Read Isaiah 57:15—21

So here I am, seeking to formulate a prayer to this God who, his word to me says, inhabits eternity. I do not. I am found in this particular time on this particular plot of land on this particular little planet. If I could burst these bonds and launch myself anywhere in all conceivable time and any conceivable place in this inconceivable universe maybe I could pray, then, to this God. Perhaps I should find God. Or perhaps not. I will look for a word that could reach him. He is high and lofty: what word? Yet he tells me where he dwells and where he can be found: with the contrite. With the humble. My word will need to be the word of the humble.

 

God of heaven and earth, who made the sea and the sky and the most distant galaxies and all the aeons of time, you have made more than that. You have made people to know you. You have made me. You have made me in your image and likeness, an image and likeness I share with all people. Together we have spoiled your image. We have betrayed your likeness. In that, we have disqualified ourselves from speaking with you. So I can have no language to address you except the language of the humble. I can come to you only in the name of my Saviour Jesus. No other way will work. In him I humbly worship  you, thank you, confess to you, and trust you. And in him you say, ‘Peace. Peace to you who are far and you who are near.’