Monday, October 29, 2007

Today’s text

John 8:31-24

To the Jews who believed in him Jesus said, “If you make my word your home you will indeed be my disciples; you will come to know the truth and the truth will set you free.” They answered, “We are descended from Abraham and we have never been the slaves of anyone; what do you mean ‘You will be set free?”

Prayer

This is not my question, Holy One. I know what it is to be enslaved to fears and questions for which I have no answers. I know the shame that I can no more slip than I can shed my own skin. But I also know you, and you are freedom.

I do not know how you unloose my soul that I enter sweet liberty. But it happens. My soul enters a broad and open space when I look at your face and see eternal compassion looking wordlessly upon me. It happens as I listen to all you say and are, Jesus. It happens when I sing the mystery of your love for me.

“Enter my freedom, enter my freedom,” you say. But how can I do that? My soul is tied to earth, held fast by anxieties and internal conflicts that have haunted me since the earliest days of my memory.

But not when I am with you. I sit with you, see your face and hear your words. I come near and see myself walking with you, and my fears fade into illusion. Anxiety and shame flee the scene and the landscape of soul opens into green fields of play, where joy and release chase off all constriction of thought, emotion and imagination.

Only in awareness of your nearness do I enter freedom. Only there do I discover the Spirit of freedom that you bear percolates also in my soul, awaiting its release that I may be, finally, human, that self that appears only in the atmosphere of your presence.

So let me dwell near your heart this day that I may see your face, hear your voice, and walk in the open fields of blessed liberty.

Pr. David L. Miller