Today's text
Matthew 3:1-2, 5-6
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.” …Then Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole Jordan district made their way to him, and as they were baptized by him in the river Jordan they confessed their sins.
Prayer
What moves human souls to surrender certain routine to seek an unknown in the unknown? They go to find John, a desert wild man whom most would avoid should they see him on the street. What did they expect to find? And why should we listen, Great Mystery?
They went and confessed their sins. I do not carry a burden of guilt, but all too well I know the incompletion of my humanity. Fashioned to be so much more--more love, more grace, more beauty, more generosity, I am less of these and more of fear, anxiety and self-absorption.
But souls do not go into the desert to confess unless there is hope of something more. Routine binds us, unless the heart flickers with the warm thought that, maybe, there is secret substance that can lift me above sin and incompletion; maybe I can know more than fear and inconsequence; maybe I can enter that mystery that niggles restless at depths of heart unreachable by mere mind.
In the heart lies awareness of a kind of life, a grace and beauty beyond that which we have seen and lived and been. It is that which moves us to your messenger to repent, to confess we have been so much less, crying, “Make us more. Make us the more you intend. Fill us with the More you are, for you made us in your image to bear the substance of your life.”
So we come. We come from the comfortable knowns of routine that we know can never fill our hearts with delight. We come to the unknown and unknowability of your mystery confessing our restless incompletion. We come in hope.
So come, Lord Jesus. Grace our lives with that love that lifts us above incompletion.
Pr. David L. Miller
http://prayingthemystery.blogspot.com/
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Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Monday, December 10, 2007
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
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
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