Monday, June 4, 2007

Today’s text

1 John 5:18

“We know that those who are born of God do not sin, but the one who was born of God protects them, and the evil one does not touch them."

Prayer

You would have me know this. You want me to live with quiet assurance that, born of God, I bear your life that keeps me from sin that undermines your purpose and distances my soul from your fullness.

You want me to live … knowing that you live in me and I live in you so that neither fear nor worry, not past, present or future can shake my heart from the calm your love claims for me.

There is a cloud of knowing in which I sometimes find myself. In the cloud, I know myself in you, surrounded and enveloped. I dwell in this cloud of knowing. It is palpable, embracing my every move and thought, overshadowing my body and being.

It reveals reality to me: I dwell in the atmosphere of you, the environment of an unspeakable divine love. I am in you. Aware and abiding in the cloud, I cannot sin for I dwell in a love that also fills me. The fears and anxieties that are the seed of my sin do not exist in the cloud. With the demons that attack in the wee hours, they are absorbed and dissolved in the cloud of your holy presence.

I am, in a word, safe, for all I know is you, the cloud of presence, the cloud of knowing where I know only peace and a joy that does, indeed, pass understanding. I am a child of the cloud, born of an all-possessing love who dwells within and in all the places of my wandering. I want to know this always. Amen.

Pr. David L. Miller