Today’s text
Philippians 4:6-7
Never worry about anything; but tell God all your desires of every kind in prayer and petition shot through with gratitude, and the peace of God which is beyond our understanding will guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus.
Reflection
So tell me, Jesus, does your peace depend also on me? Must I do my part; bring all I am in prayer to you, knowing your heart is my home?
Is it then that peace will guard my heart?
As you know, this is a heart that needs much guarding. I am regularly impressed by how easily my sense of peace and stability is disrupted. Objections and misunderstandings come, small bumps in the byways of human discourse. But even small bumps can bring anger or defensiveness welling from my depths.
It’s an old pattern, and one not limited, I know, to me. But peace flees in such moments, and it precisely then that I most need the equanimity, the calm, the peace that rests in you.
Resting in you is the only way to this peace, and living this peace is the way that peace is prolonged.
So I come again to rest in you. Those words are such an abstraction. What, really, do they mean? Is it as simple as coming to a quiet place, like this, and naming the distresses of my heart, aware that you welcome each one with a love I cannot comprehend?
Is this resting knowing there is nothing to do, except to be here pouring out this soul--and listening to the silence for your gentle movements in my depths?
Is it even less, just being here with you?
It seems so, and the peace I know here is what I need to carry with me as I leave for the day. So help me touch this quiet space within me, and retreat to just this place when unruly passions well and foam that I may know and be your peace.
Your peace does not depend on outward circumstance, but inward recollection.
Pr. David L. Miller
http://prayingthemystery.blogspot.com/
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Thursday, October 09, 2008
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Today’s text
Philippians 4:4
Never worry about anything; but tell God all your desires of every kind in prayer and petition shot through with gratitude, and the peace of God which is beyond our understanding will guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus.
Reflection
All of life, all that I am, is to be offered in relationship to you, who are Love. And you receive me, all of me, leaving nothing out, nothing untouched, nothing unforgiven, nothing unredeemed, nothing that is not transformed into the joy of knowing you.
So I bring all I have been and am. Though I am largely a mystery to myself, you know all that I am and know it in the love you are, receiving what I bring with open arms, eager to enfold a child of your own making, a heart born from the generosity of your own.
So I come, bearing the load of my life, my heart eager to be lightened of its futile cares.
But I already am lighter. Gratitude flows from the unseen fountain of being within me at the sound of your voice, ‘Release your worries; tell me all your desires.’ At this, the heart hears the long-sought sound of home.
And the soul rises. For gratitude is much lighter than the cares of the heart. It is weightless and makes me so. I walk with feather step amid the wounded of earth, my transformed being a living prayer that your love might lift their souls into the flight of freedom and joy.
.
Then only shall we comprehend your peace, though it passes any understanding we possess. Still, we will know.
Pr. David L. Miller
Philippians 4:4
Never worry about anything; but tell God all your desires of every kind in prayer and petition shot through with gratitude, and the peace of God which is beyond our understanding will guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus.
Reflection
All of life, all that I am, is to be offered in relationship to you, who are Love. And you receive me, all of me, leaving nothing out, nothing untouched, nothing unforgiven, nothing unredeemed, nothing that is not transformed into the joy of knowing you.
So I bring all I have been and am. Though I am largely a mystery to myself, you know all that I am and know it in the love you are, receiving what I bring with open arms, eager to enfold a child of your own making, a heart born from the generosity of your own.
So I come, bearing the load of my life, my heart eager to be lightened of its futile cares.
But I already am lighter. Gratitude flows from the unseen fountain of being within me at the sound of your voice, ‘Release your worries; tell me all your desires.’ At this, the heart hears the long-sought sound of home.
And the soul rises. For gratitude is much lighter than the cares of the heart. It is weightless and makes me so. I walk with feather step amid the wounded of earth, my transformed being a living prayer that your love might lift their souls into the flight of freedom and joy.
.
Then only shall we comprehend your peace, though it passes any understanding we possess. Still, we will know.
Pr. David L. Miller
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Today’s text
Philippians 4:4
Always be joyful, then, in the Lord; I repeat, be joyful.
Reflection
Help me rise, dearest Friend. Draw every thought to you. Take one each captive that my soul may transcend the moods that weigh my heart.
I long for distant voices I have missed for many weeks. My heart wants to fly, but cannot elevate above the carpet, weighted, as it is, with worry and impotent imaginings of what might be happening to my beloved.
Necessary details of living--letters to write, calls to make, the little logistics of meetings, programs and classes--gobble the hours, consuming the days. The heart trudges through all the while longing to return to the essential.
And that, dear Heart, is you.
You dwell in this laden heart of mine. And joy comes only as I stop to listen, heart to Heart, to the eternal Heart of your nearness, abiding within.
Joy flows from this secret place. It is irrational, really. It makes no sense. The days do not grow shorter … or easier, when I fly to this gracious space. I am no more accomplished or competent and have won no successes anyone might see.
But joy comes as I turn my eyes in to listen again to you, the Heart of my heart. Little wonder, I suppose, for there I know myself in you, truly inside your immensity, the soul enveloped in its true home.
And there is joy. But of course, that’s where joy dwells.
So I can be joyful … in the Lord.
Pr. David L. Miller
Philippians 4:4
Always be joyful, then, in the Lord; I repeat, be joyful.
Reflection
Help me rise, dearest Friend. Draw every thought to you. Take one each captive that my soul may transcend the moods that weigh my heart.
I long for distant voices I have missed for many weeks. My heart wants to fly, but cannot elevate above the carpet, weighted, as it is, with worry and impotent imaginings of what might be happening to my beloved.
Necessary details of living--letters to write, calls to make, the little logistics of meetings, programs and classes--gobble the hours, consuming the days. The heart trudges through all the while longing to return to the essential.
And that, dear Heart, is you.
You dwell in this laden heart of mine. And joy comes only as I stop to listen, heart to Heart, to the eternal Heart of your nearness, abiding within.
Joy flows from this secret place. It is irrational, really. It makes no sense. The days do not grow shorter … or easier, when I fly to this gracious space. I am no more accomplished or competent and have won no successes anyone might see.
But joy comes as I turn my eyes in to listen again to you, the Heart of my heart. Little wonder, I suppose, for there I know myself in you, truly inside your immensity, the soul enveloped in its true home.
And there is joy. But of course, that’s where joy dwells.
So I can be joyful … in the Lord.
Pr. David L. Miller
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