Thursday, July 26, 2012

Today’s text


Ephesians 3:14-17a

This, then, is what I pray, kneeling before the Father, from whom every fatherhood, in heaven or on earth, takes its name. In the abundance of his glory may he, through his Spirit, enable you to grow firm in power with regard to your inner self, so that Christ may live in your hearts through faith … .


Reflection

The life to which we are called is not one of weakness or passive pieties but of strength, the strength that appears in Christ. His strength lives in us.
We don’t typically don’t believe that … or feel it. But the living Christ lives in us--and in every heart that is open to goodness and grace, beauty and wonder. For, Christ is all that is good and the good that is in all.
When we see and know goodness and grace in ourselves … or others … we encounter the living Christ, gracing life and giving us the power to grow into the expression of his life we each are intended to be.

We each are intended to be convinced of who we are, of what we are: bearers of Christ, sharing his love and power, his purpose and passion.

I look into the mirror each morning and see a face that looks more like my blessed father’s with each passing month. No one need convince me that I am his son, bearing his genes and something of his spirit. It is perfectly clear as I shave my face each new day. The face in the mirror makes it impossible for me to forget who I am.
But I do forget my deepest and truest identity. Amid the difficulties of life, I lapse into negativities that make me diminish myself, my importance, the power that I have to give life … even as Christ is life-giver.
For beneath the face in the mirror, in the depth of my soul, breathes the Soul of Christ, a soul seeking to express life and grace into each moment, a soul eager to know and be love so that hungry hearts may be fed with joy and hope.

This is who I am, the identity of which the Spirit of God seeks to convince my heart so that I have no doubt of the beauty, the wonder, the love and, yes, the power that I bear.

Knowing this, convinced again, I go to may daily tasks not with anxiety or hesitation but boldly, knowing who I am and the inner strength who is the Christ dwelling within.

Pr. David L. Miller