Friday May 4, 2007

Today’s text

1 John 4:11-12

“Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.”

Prayer

I wake and try to catch you with words. This is my day. It is like trying to snatch dancing flames to put them in a jar. I grasp at the air. The flame singes my hand, but when I open it my hand is empty. Again I capture nothing. My words fall flat to the floor. And my soul burns at my failure to catch and share some small beauty of your dance in time and space.

All in all, I would prefer to say nothing. Simply remain silent. I crave the silent knowing of your love in moments when there is no need to say a thing, just be. Then I know only you, undistracted by my weakness and failures.

So today, just let me watch and wait and listen in the silence for the slightest stirring of soul in which I know the dancing flame of your love living in me and in this people among whom I dwell.

That will be enough for me. But I lie; it is not enough. Inevitably, I will again try to catch fire in a jar. Forgive my failures, and make my hand quicker. Amen.

Pr. David L. Miller