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It is not by our own strength that we come before You, Lord,
for our hands are often empty,
our will is frail,
and our daily work remains a fragment.
We detach ourselves from the delusion of striving,
from the deception that we must earn Your love,
and from the burden of a piety that exhausts humanity.
You do not seek our perfect achievement,
You seek us ourselves – in our unvarnished truth.
Your strength is revealed in our weakness.
Where our plans shatter,
where sickness, sorrow, and powerlessness bend us,
where the disruption of our daily lives takes the reins from us,
there You await us.
Not in heroic deeds, but in enduring our limits
Your presence becomes tangible.
Make us still before You.
Free us from the compulsion of self-optimization
and grant us the courage for holy interruption.
Let us receive before we act;
let us accept Your mercy,
so that we may become merciful with ourselves
and with every person who falters in their own strength.
For Your strength is not our steadfastness,
but Your faithfulness in the abyss.
Into Your open hands we lay our incapacity,
in Your grace we find rest,
in Your compassion alone lies our salvation.
God’s strength,
mighty in weakness,
Light in the darkness,
the sustaining ground of our lives.
