Thursday, November 15, 2007

Today's text

Luke 20:34-38

Jesus replied, “The children of this world take wives and husbands, but those who are judged worthy of a place in the other world and in the resurrection of the dead do not marry because they can no longer die, for they are the same as the angels, and being children of the resurrection they are children of God. And Moses himself implies that the dead rise again, in the passage about the bush where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now he is God, not of the dead, but of the living; for to him everyone is alive.”

Prayer

You are God of the living, and all that know you are alive. None are lost, leaving no trace, no mark on your divine heart. All are cradled in your nearness, drinking the nectar of life.

And yet, there are places in my heart that do not know you, dead places where wounds new and old fester and breed resentment and anger. In me are barren landscapes where joy evaporates, where my heart withers in a desert of self-absorption, where I feel nothing but aggrievement and hunger for attention.

There is no freedom there, no life, vitality or joy, for those parts of me do not know you, Living One.

Come to me this day with the fullness of your love and life and let me live. Let me know the blessed rush of feeling truly alive. I weary of the deadness that too often crushes my heart so that I neither receive nor share your love in whole hearted abandonment. I long for that abandonment. It is the certain mark of freedom and joy.

So come, God of the living. Come to every dead place in my heart and to every place of death on this earth. Come. Give us today the life of your eternal tomorrow.

Pr. David L. Miller