Posts
Today’s text
Peter answered him,
‘Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.’ He said, ‘Come.’
So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came towards
Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind,
he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’
Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, ‘You of
little faith, why did you doubt?’ When they got into the boat, the wind ceased.
And those in the boat worshipped him, saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God.’
Walking on water
Back to the Voice. We need to hear the Voice of Love, the
Voice of Eternal Presence amid the noise of living … and its absorbing fears.
Peter asks to hear the Voice telling him to walk amid the restless waves that
threaten.
He knows … when the Voice speaks in his soul he has what he
needs to live with heart, with courage when threats come.
So speak, Lord Jesus, speak to us, speak in us. Speak from
the depth of your heart where the Father dwells that we may hear and know you.
Our fears are many, and we often sink beneath them.
I held my mother’s hand a few days ago. We were in a
hospital room in Monroe, Wis., and she was about to be taken to
surgery. Nurses surrounded her bed and began their preparations.
I started for the door, but without thinking reversed my
course and stepped among them at Mom’s side. I took her right hand in mine,
hands at the side of her head, bent close to her ear and whispered the best
prayer I could manage at the moment.
It was not elegant, certainly not as artful as I would have
liked or as she deserved.
But is was real; real, too, was the strong grip in her
nearly 85 year-old hand. I knew she would never show or tell us how anxious she
was, this woman who has long sought to manage and control virtually every thing
she touches … including me.
All the anxiety over living and dying, fear of losing the
kind of life that has been meaningful for her, all of this … was locked up in
her hand, in that grip, as I prayed for healing and peace, for a quiet mind, for
Christ to assure her that she is held in a Love beyond her capacity to
understand.
She held on tight, just as tightly as she gripped my hand … with words tears of thanks … when she
returned to her room hours later.
Only now does it occur to me that my whispered prayer was,
for her, the Voice of Love speaking to her heart as she was sinking beneath her
fears of living and dying.
There is much more to say here, but this is enough for now:
Jesus is the Voice of Love who comes amid restless waves of fear, finding ways
to speak to us and in us, seeking to fill us with the Eternal Presence of Love
that filled him.
Hearing this Voice courage comes, and however slowly … we
begin to learn how to walk on water.
Pr. David L. Miller
No comments:
Post a Comment