Lord, this is my desperate prayer,
to get past the material life and breath real air —
once again. Not suffocated. No more despair.
Not clouded by anguish or looking for my name in lights,
but to look up to the Heavens and see the bright
stars you created, or the clouds in the day.
What I wouldn’t give for more time to say your name,
and mean it when I pray to you and call you my God
instead of sleeping through church like the fraud —
I’ve become; because I let myself care more
about success in their eyes, less about your
kingdom that will come — even though I know it’s true,
it’s like I’ve shut off what I know so I can get through
one more day of this busyness until I can finally sit back
and look up to you and thank you for the life that I’ve had.
But when it’s too quiet, like that stupid song Radio,
I realize the truth once more, and I know
that I cannot thank you in the end for something that I never let you give!
Lord, I pray this prayer, that you’ll teach me how to live
like the person my mother raised me to be:
someone who carries the cross, looks at any person and sees
a neighbor like Kierkegaard said we would.
A philosopher is no authority, but I trust the word of God, he
came down to this earth so I could love, not worry about my body —
what clothes I will wear, and more the skin underneath it
because regardless of appearance I am a temple, I am His.
And I just pray, Oh GOD that the time that I waste on material things
will be recycled to someone who recognizes your glory and grace.
But if that just isn’t how time works, then please let it be
that I spend that now-wasted time on building up you, not me.
Because I’ve learned that the person who “has it all”
has nothing.
KEBU 