Thursday, May 31, 2007

Today’s text

1 John 5:16

“If you see your brother or sister committing what is not a mortal sin, you will ask, and God will give life to such a one--to those whose sin is not mortal.”

Prayer

I know sin all too well. My heart is not singular and pure. My soul does not shine with the crystalline clarity of your divine heart. Each intricate facet of your Being glimmers with the unsullied, undiluted purity of the Love whom you are. Who can gaze into light so pure, so piercing?

I am nothing like this. My sin is the source of most of my pain and sadness, my weakness and worry. I would love and trust you, finding strength and calmness of heart amid the feverishness of life. But on too many days I turn from the plentitude of your provision and quickly am trapped in anxiety about my want of skill and time, insight and ability. My incompetence and inadequacy for the tasks of your calling mock me.

In abject need, I turn and fall again into the fullness of your love, and my soul is enveloped in a cloud of knowing assurance. I am certain again, not of me, but of you, of the constant presence of your love, of the infinitely abundant reality that I dwell in the atmosphere of a love that will never abandon me to my own devices.

My heart is filled my life, eternal life, which is to say, with you. And I live. Oh, that I could always live like this. This alone is life, a life you give to sinners and wanderers like me. Pour your loving nearness on all of us this day that we may glow with a glory not our own. Amen.

Pr. David L. Miller