It is hard to be vulnerable. It is hard to open ourselves to another person in such a way that leaves us open for hurt. Many of us carry around a barrier with us to make sure that kind of hurt doesn’t take place when we are our in the world, and only share our deepest and truest selves with people we have come to love and trust.

We often forget that God is as close to us us as anyone can be or could ever be. It is an intimate relationship, one where God knows us better than we know even ourselves. And it isn’t just a one way street. God reveals God’s self to us in countless ways: through nature and the movement of the world, through our scriptures, the living and breathing word, and through our interactions with one another, that we as parts of the body of Christ might come to better know the whole.

Let us open ourselves to God, knowing that even the darkest parts of ourselves, the parts that we try to hide are revealed. And if we only let God’s light shine in and through us, we can know that we are forever forgiven and eternally loved.

Let us pray

Psalm 127:1-2

For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.

In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed. How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! I try to count them—they are more than the sand; I come to the end—I am still with you.

Amazing God, we look to you, and you look right through us. You see our beginning and our end. You see the joys and the struggles in between. You see our virtues and our brokenness. You see the parts of us that we try to hide, parts that we try to forget. You see us, wholly and completely. You love us, wholly and completely.

Open us to truly welcome your will into our hearts. Reveal yourself to us, show us the way that walks ever in the glory of your light. We ask this in the name of the Christ who came to show us that way. AMEN