I can’t think about this man’s question to Jesus about eternal life without thinking of this passage that I recently read in Cole Arthur Riley’s This Here Flesh:

I was sitting in McDonald’s wot my first Bible-study leader when I told her I didn’t want Jesus in my heart…I told her I wanted God out there doing something, nodding to the street beyond the glass window. Why confined to a heart? She tried to defuse a look on her face by sipping on coffee that tasted like ash. I, embarrassed (whether on my behalf or hers, I did not know) , began alternating peeling my bare legs off of the plastic booth to fill the silence between us. Until finally she said, That’s where you’re changed, pointing to her heart not mine. And I didn’t have the courage to say, I like my heart just fine. She motioned toward the fluorescent canopy and back to her chest. For eternal life, God looks to the heart, she said. And I couldn’t tell her I had no desire for forever.

As someone who is made of more doubt than faith, I find that Christians tend to want to talk to me about salvation. They seem quite concerned with the future of my faith, but they make the mistake of showing little interest in my present conditions. If I had to choose, I want a God who is someplace. Not just in “the heart,” but God standing on Fifth snd Loothrop — God beyond the glass. I don’t want to be rescued, I want to be taken someplace safe and good.

It’s these wise words that are rattling around in my heart as I write these prayers.

Inspired by Job 13:1-9, 16-17

We come together today groaning and lamenting the state of the world.
We’ve filled our mouths with arguments and have grown weary of the sound of our voices.

We gather to find strength together and remember what it means to take the next step in faith and hope.
Let us lean on each other and go forward together.

There is enough fear out there.
We come to talk of love and how it change our hearts.

Inspired by Mark 10:17-31

Heart of your hearts, 
Goodness from Goodness,
whirl through this world. 
Turn it around and upside down
so that that the impossible 
is all there is. 

Don't tell us another story
about how it could be
but show your goodness
by making what cannot
believe be the only thing
that we can see. 

Change our hearts
to your impossible ways
so that we no longer focus
on the worst that your people can do
but only see the radiance of your goodness
turning this world upside down with love.
O Goodness, show us your true heart today.

I hope these prayers might offer hope and healing in a world where it feels impossible that anything will ever change.