You keep us

You keep us waiting
You, the God of all time
Want us to wait for the right time in which to discover
Who we are, where we must go,
Who will be with us and what we must do
So thank you ... for the waiting time

You keep us looking
You, the God of all space
Want us to look in the right and wrong places
For signs of hope, for people who are hopeless
For visions of a better world that will appear
among the disappointments of the world we know
So thank you ... for the looking time

You keep us loving
You, the God whose name is love
Want us to be like you
To love the loveless and the unlovely and the unlovable
To love without jealousy or design or threat
And most difficult of all, to love ourselves
So thank you ... for the loving time

And in all this, You keep us
Through hard questions with no easy answers
Through failing where we hoped to succeed and
making an impact where we felt we were useless
Through the patience and the dreams and the love of others
And through Jesus Christ and his Spirit, You keep us
So thank you ... for this keeping time

And for now and for ever
Amen

- Iona Community, Scotland