Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Today’s text

1 John 3:4-6

“Everyone who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he was revealed to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him.”

Prayer

I know the pain of sin, Holy One, as do you. When sin does not separate there is no space between us, no here and there, no me and you. I rest in you who are not near but here, around, about, within--the all-enveloping wonder with whom I share a seamless intimacy in which there is no separation between my mortality and your eternity.

We are one, and I am certain beyond all doubt that your love holds me fast in this and every age. Assurance fills my heart; joy bubbles over, a flowing stream of life, love and confidence. The idea of turning from you, of seeking life anywhere but in you, is unthinkable, the foulest delusion.

But blessed intimacy shatters like glass when I turn from the constancy of your love to the shifting fears of my fretful soul. Ancient anxieties that I know far too well seize my mind, and I lose the exquisite intimacy of your abiding.

I refuse the invitation of love you write in the inscape of every circumstance and alienate myself from others, avoiding them in fear, boarding up my heart, no longer trusting that communal sharing you seek to work among us.

Sin separates, so that I no longer abide in you but in the disquiet of my mind where fears cloud my vision until I can see nothing else.

But you do not leave me to the lawless disorder of my heart. You come again and again, inviting me to abide in that incandescent love that evaporates my anxiety, restores our union and opens my eyes to see you and to know: my sin is not nearly sufficient to steal me from your love.

Open our eyes to see and know you in this holy time of your self-giving, blessed Jesus. Take away the sin that weights our souls and shatters our joy that we may abide in you, trusting all your love has done and will do for us from this time and forever. Amen.

Pr. David L. Miller