Friday, December 15, 2006

Today’s reading

Philippians 4:4:1-7

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God that passes all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:4-7).

Prayer

Come, Lord Jesus. Draw near that we may speak heart to heart. But this does not describe the intimacy we know in these morning moments. For when I speak to you it is you who speak in me to the Holy Greatness who is beyond me. Your Spirit abides, speaking in the depth of this human heart to you who are ever beyond me. There is no space between us, no here and there, no separation, but two hearts holding intimate exchange in one mortality.

You are the Near Abiding and Infinitely Transcendent, the Far Near One, whose immense divine heart thirsts to abide in and with me. Your divine desire is that I may know you even as I am known, possessing such knowledge as only love may have.

No wonder you insist that we pour out prayer and supplication to you, making our hearts known to you. Certainly, you already know the quagmire of our soul’s confliction. But in prayer we give voice to you who hungers to pray us, to pray in us, to pray us into intimacy with an infinite love we have no other way of entering.

You demand our prayers that we may abide in each other. You insist because you hunger to know us, to dwell intimately, heart to heart, your immensity communing in and with my smallness. My desire to know you and nothing but you is nothing more--or less--than your Spirit taking residence in this soul. Your Spirit within my own moves to complete that blessed communion which is your desire for me.

So Lord Jesus, you who always come, I will come to you. I will pour out my prayers and requests, knowing all the while that it is you who speaks in me, praying me into the dearest desire of your heart, and mine. Amen.