Monday, December 10, 2007

Today's text

Matthew 3:1-4

In due course John the Baptist appeared; he proclaimed this message in the desert of Judea, “Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is close at hand.” This was the man spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, “A voice of one that cries in the desert, “Prepare the way for the Lord, make his paths straight.’” This man wore a garment of camel-hair with a leather loin cloth around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.

Prayer

How shall I make your paths straight, O Lord, that you may come and excite your presence in the depth of this soul and live? You come in times and ways of your choosing, not mine. The visitation of your power depends not at all on me.

And yet, you call: “prepare my way.” Perhaps it is only so that I will not be asleep when you appear.

I sleep through much of my life. I miss your nearness, your constant coming. Preoccupied with my tiny self, its bumps and bruises, I seek to make life on my own terms, little seeing that every moment of life is laced with your appearance, your coming, the presence you who are life.

And I fall into melancholy and confusion, knowing you are near but unable to reach into the darkness of soul and touch--or be touched--by you whom I crave. So, again, how shall I prepare? For I hunger for your approach, and you do not ever avoid coming to me.

John went to a wilderness abandoning the comforts of the human city, seeking and serving you, freed from pursuits that preoccupy and drown out the cry of soul. Perhaps he heard that cry once he was beyond the bounds of the busy streets.

Perhaps he met your approach and knew your nearness in that deep cry of soul that he heard and released there in his wilderness, calling me, too, to hear. If so, lead me into my wilderness that I may hear and know and call out word of your coming.

Come to me this day. I languish lonely without you.

Pr. David L. Miller