After a quarter of framing the new season of Beautiful Missiology, it seems fitting to end not with another essay but with a prayer. This is for those who have labored in God’s mission long enough to feel well-worn—and who need again to receive the grace they so often hold out to others. It can be used as inspiration for an individual prayer, or offered as a liturgy in a group by everyone repeating the italicized lines together.
O God who envisioned a world to fill with glory
And then made it by your word
You have seen a new creation to fill with glory
Poured in by Christ the living Word
Topped off by the redeemed of every nation
Lord, I long to see that world.
Yet you have not spoken it into being
No, you have chosen instead
To speak your word through unclean lips
To pour your glory through cracked jars
To win it all through the weak and needy
Lord, I am often weak and needy.
I know you will see your vision through
I know it, or I wouldn’t be here still
But I have been around the block enough to know
This is a vision so big
That only you could accomplish it
Lord, I believe—help my unbelief.
I labor in a ministry that demands immediate results
But it’s slow work
I live with a burden to see the lost saved
But I cannot save
I feel an urgency to mobilize your church
But we are so easily distracted
I carry a longing to be sent out myself
But here I am
I love to befriend those who are going
But they leave me
I continue to pour myself into this work
But I grow tired
Lord, I am not sufficient for these things.
So I look to you who bids me come
Again and again and again
Whose only requirement for grace
Is to come weak and needy
Empty to be filled
Lord, I need the same gospel I hold out to others.
You invite me to rest and wear your yoke
The tool for working oxen
I confess it is a strange analogy
And yet it is an easy and light burden
When I see that you do the heavy lifting
Lord, your finished work secures that which is unfinished.
O God who saw in me a vessel to fill with glory
Here again I offer back that which you have first given
My strength, my weakness, my everything
Pour through me Christ the living Word
And top off your world with the redeemed from every nation.
Amen.1
This is adapted from its original publication by Upstream Collective.