February 25, 2015

Psalm 31:9-10

Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress;
   my eye wastes away from grief,
   my soul and body also. 
For my life is spent with sorrow,
   and my years with sighing;

The secret

Why does the soul ache? For what purpose is this pain except to tell me what I do not and cannot have … peace of heart … at least now?

Is the secret of joy to cease wanting, to kill the desire to know greater beauty, hope … fulfillment?

But how I can kill desire without killing my soul and what beauty is there?

For what am I …what are we … if not desire for More? All of our lives we ache … for welcome, for care, for love, for respect, for beauty … for the joy that completes the heart.

It is you, O Lord, who made us this way. It’s your fault.

You, whose name is Seeking Love, are not content to lose us. So you seek us in every place, writing your love in signs and sky and human lives that we may know and be seduced into loving you.

And we are just like that, just like you, stirred to seek what mind and heart require.

Ancient voices tell me I am not alone. The human heart is little changed as the centuries pass. We are made in the image of Searching Love, created to need, to want and to seek joy and completion.

Our hearts are restless until they rest you. That is the secret—You. We are to rest in you. Everything else in this world disappoints, sooner or later, no matter how good, how rich, how beautiful, how joy-filled.

There is always something More the heart wants … and needs. And those restless hearts of ours, you created as a gift to keep us moving and seeking, hoping and loving until all our restlessness leads us home… to rest … in the Love you are.

Today, draw me into that space where rest can come …so my heart may have what it needs.

Pr. David L. Miller