Heaven opens

Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened … . (Luke 3:21)

Reflection

This is the way it is. In prayer, real prayer, in opened-hearted, radical honesty, heaven opens, and we enter the Holy Presence where nothing else matters but being with you, Holy One.

Such is your eternal invitation: “Come, be with me. There is no need for you to be … or to feel alone. There is a place here beside me.”

Jesus sits on bank of the stream where he’d been baptized and prays, his heart open to the Eternal Presence which fills him, a holy knowing in the depth of soul.

The empty place beside him beckons. This is our space, the place of belonging and knowing the Everlasting Love who lights him from within.

It is the place of prayer, where nothing is out of bounds, where everything can be said and all that we are is welcome. Anger, feelings of failure, the joys for which we hope and the fulfillments that elude, pain and confusion about who we are and what we really need—everything.

Prayer may be peaceful as a gentle stream or a bitter struggle to find something to hold onto in the tempest of living lest we drown in a sea of restless emotion.

So come, bring whatever you are and everything that is in you to Christ who bids you to sit in that empty place beside him.

Release everything. Heaven will open, and you soon will rest in the Love who always has a place … for you.

Pr. David L. Miller