Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Today’s text

Philippians 3:7-11

But what were once my assets I now through Christ Jesus count as losses. Yes, I will go further: because of the supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, I count everything else as loss. For him I have accepted the loss of all other things, and look on them all as filth if only I can gain Christ and be given a place in him, with the uprightness I have gained not from the Law, but through faith in Christ, an uprightness from God, based on faith, that I may come to know him and the power of his resurrection, and partake of his sufferings by being molded to the pattern of his death, striving towards the goal of resurrection from the dead.

Reflection

I cannot deny the power of your resurrection. In some miniscule way, I know it. I say this with resistance flowing through my veins. But say it I must, for your power is more present than my resistance and more persistent.

So I speak: I know the power of your rising, holy Jesus, the power that lifted you alive from the death of the tomb, the power of Being Itself, the power that lives in all that lives, the power that never rests until life overwhelms the emptiness and completes all that is.

I come to this place of prayer, and you lift me again from coldness to joy, from sloth to purpose, from dissipation to vitality, from bondage to freedom, from death to life.
Your power pulses in my blood, and in its rush I know the power of your rising … rising also in me.

How may I stay connected to you, the Infinite Source of resurrection, that life may come to my every death? So many days drag me down into the tomb of fear and mere existence, and I want more. I want the power of your rising bubbling and filling, overflowing and freeing this soul that I may be the joy you intend.

Compared with this blessed freedom, little else matters. So what is your answer, Jesus?

“Come. Come to me,” you say. “Each day. Whatever your condition. Come. Surrender all claims to meaning or significance. Give up the self you think you are. It is illusion. You are only that which you become in the nearness of the love that I am. From eternity you are loved and known, and love attends your every step and indwells your soul, however buried it may be. This love is my present nearness.

“Flee to those places where you know love. Love the small details of your days, attending each with care. You will enter deeply the love that abides, the life that attends your every step.

“And you will know the power of my rising, for that power is love and nothing but love--the one power that alone is stronger than the death you fear.”

Pr. David L. Miller