A Prayer for Saturday, October 4, 2014

7,000,000,000

O God,

As you well know, there are over seven billion people on this planet. In fact, you know every one of them and you love every one of them; we stand in awe of your knowledge and of your love.

We cannot know and love seven billion people or seven million people or seven thousand people. Perhaps we can know seven hundred people but we can’t really love that many—not if love means knowing them intimately, being committed to them unconditionally, and sacrificing ourselves for them consistently.

Seventy or seventeen may be more realistic numbers for us.

Or maybe just seven. Maybe the best we can do is to give ourselves fully to just a few people.

But are we even doing that?

Perhaps we should just start with one and go from there.

Give us relationships characterized by depth of commitment and by abundance of sacrifice. Help us to know and to love other people as they are and not as we wish or imagine them to be.

Make us willing to do the hard work of loving a few people well.

And insofar as have the opportunity and ability to show love to a large number of people by participating in a movement or by helping with a cause, let us be inspired by the highest quality of love possible on such a broad scale. Never let us forget that it is people—people that you love—with whom we are dealing.

Amen.