Monday, August 21, 2017

Ephesians 3:18-20

I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Lost in the moment

All it takes is the turn of a head, a glance, a smile, the sparkle in a shining eye.

Or maybe it happens when a song you once knew lands again on your ear and awakens your heart to the Love that lives there.

Or maybe it is nature in manifold splendor, trees arching above a path leading you deeper into the mystery of your heart, your memories and the pain and beauty you hide.

It only takes a moment for eternity to rush in, filling you with God, which is to say with a Great Love that fills and spills from your heart, making you glad you’re alive just so you might know the joy of this one precious moment.

Just then, filled with the fullness of Love … that is of God … you know you are in God and God is in you. There is no separation.

Lost in the moment, you know: You live in a sea of Love that holds everything, your joys and hopes, your pains and fears. All of it is held in an ocean of Love, its tides moving also in you.

This is not crazy talk. It is an experience people of faith … and people of no faith … have tried to describe for centuries. Some call it ‘oceanic awareness'—the awareness of being one with all things, an awareness that awakens love and acceptance of others in all their humanness.

Jesus prayed that we may be one with God and each other. He spoke of the Kingdom of God, a community of shared belovedness.

The apostle Paul talks about being caught up in the third heaven where he felt and knew things no mortal could tell. The author of Ephesians talks of being filled with God. Filled with God! Filled with the Love nothing can contain.

Whatever we call it. The experience comes to human souls. And when it does … there are no words. How can there be? Lost in the moment—when immense Love fills, envelops and pours out of us—we finally know God.

You cannot make it happen. The Spirit blows where it wills. We don’t control it, but we can keep our eyes and ears and hearts open. You never know when the right word will be spoken, when that unexpected song will catch your ear, or when the sparkle in an eye will awaken the Love who treasures you and this crazy world beyond all reason.

Pr. David L. Miller