Thursday, November 16, 2006

Today’s reading

Philippians 3:7-9

“Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith” (Phil. 3:7-9).

Prayer

Found in you? Why should those words thoroughly warm me? They immerse my morning soul in a bottomless well of warmth and blessing. I take in the breath of life, and you fill my lungs. I walk across the room, and you envelop every step like the air, parting to let me pass but embracing every pour, encompassing my entire being. I dwell in the environment of you, Living Spirit. Is this what it is to be found in you? To know you as the all-enveloping milieu of my life so that there is no moment of separation from the all-encircling arms of your everlasting embrace?

I am in you. You claim me in the cosmos-enfolding embrace of arms outstretched on the cross, Living One. There you welcome all that I am and all that is. Risen and loose in the world, you seek to draw in and fill all with the fullness you are, and you are the Everlasting More. Count me among the victories you have won in bitter woundedness. Count me among the beloved who want nothing more than to abide your fullness all our days, and at the last to fall asleep in you. You are the home for which I always yearned but never knew.

Except now, in you. In you, I have no thought or worry of righteousness. Dwelling in the space of your life, I know no thought of sin or stain, fault or failure, for all has been overwhelmed, dissolved in an infinite sea of eternal mercy. In you, everything can be surrendered. I can bring all that I am; nothing needs to be hidden or denied. In you, I can lose everything I have. It matters not. For I I dwell in you who are Everlasting Fullness, the Always More. In you there is no loss, only gain.

How can words catch your wonder? How can I praise you for sharing with me the fullness of your risen life? Today, may I bask in the freedom I know only as I dwell in the gracious space of your life. And may the joy that flows from heart, only there, give fitting praise to you who are beyond all praising. Amen.