Saturday, January 5, 2019

John 1:38-39

When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day.

Each day

A day is not enough, not nearly. We need and want to be with him every day. This, exactly, is Jesus’ invitation, Come and see, not once or twice but each day.

Come and be with me, Jesus says. Set aside silence to give me your heart, whatever is there. I want you to be with me that you may see and know, feel and be transformed into that which I am, a living expression of the Everlasting Love who has no beginning and who is the end to whom all things go.

Knowing this Love every day we truly feel like and become the human beings we are. We are made by and for this Love who is beyond all names.

Resolutions for the new year quickly fail amid the routine demands of living, but make this one central to your year:

Each day resolve to spend time alone listening to your heart and offering what is there to God. Speak to Jesus as one friend to another and rest in the presence of the Love who wants you.

Each day make a conscious effort to bless someone through a touch, kind words or actions. Each time you do this, you place yourself in the flow of God, the current of Love that springs from the depth of the divine heart and flows through all creation.

Each day this year, come and see the Loving Mystery who hungers for you. At year’s end, you will be more alive and more yourself than you have ever been.

Pr. David L. Miller

Thursday, January 3, 2018

Luke 2:49

‘Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?’

The air we breathe

The house of the Father is anywhere we can truly be with God.

God doesn’t dwell in a house made by human hands, but in the universe fashioned by Eternal Love. God is the Love who is everywhere … seeking to be known in everything.

We, on the other hand, are always embodied somewhere … in this place or that. And some places distract us from what is most essential to the joy we desire to know.

But there are places where our hearts attune more easily to see and know, to commune and enter relationship with the Loving One who is everywhere at once.

So, it is important to know what the Father’s house is … for you. Where are the places you can truly be with the Loving Mystery and hear the voice of the One who so desperately wants to be heart-to-heart with you?

We need ways and places to be silent and listen to our soul. The Father’s house is a quiet place where the noise of the world fades and doesn’t intrude.

But it may also be the local pub, a living room, time with good friends, walking a busy street where love fills you.

The Father’s house appears anywhere human hearts share what’s in them, knowing it is okay to be wrong and that there is no special prize for being right. All that matters is knowing … love, for every love breathes the Love God is.

For each of us, the Father’s house is any place and every place where Love is the air we breathe.

Pr. David L. Miller

Monday, December 31, 2018

Luke 2:48-49

When his parents saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, ‘Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.’ He said to them, ‘Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?’ 

Knowing and knowing

Joy appears as I imagine the boy, Jesus, sharing and questioning among great teachers in his Father’s house, the temple. It is the joy of those who know God and yet know there is so much more that they do not know.

The Holy One is a great Loving Mystery. Blessed by God’s presence, we experience this Love flowing in, through and among us. It fills the heart, but we are not fully satisfied or perhaps only for brief moments.

For Love awakens the awareness that there is so much more that we do not know, more Love, more presence, more hope, more joy, more blessing to know and share. God is always more than we think or imagine.

Every word of knowledge, every experience of the Loving Presence in and among us opens the heart and excites hunger for more of the inexhaustible Love God is.

A new year is but hours away. Be grateful for all the knowing the years have given. Let it fill you with an ecstatic hope for more of the Love you know. The inexpressible wonder of our loving God will be present in every moment of the year to come.

It will be an adventure. Every year is an adventure, if you open your heart. Love always comes to teach you … more.

Pr. David L. Miller

Sunday, December 30, 2018

John 1:14

The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

Can you hear me?

Joy comes when we are filled to overflowing with love. And every day, the Word of God’s ever-present voice speaks. It sings to us and in us that we may know and enter the joy for which our hearts long.

The Word is not mere words but God’s loving power present in everything—all things and all people and in our own souls. When it catches your ear it awakens loving joy in your heart.

The voice of the Word is most clear in who we celebrate at Christmas, this infant Jesus.

In him, the Word becomes become a human being. He will heal and bless, pour out forgiveness and command justice for the oppressed. He will touch the broken with loving hands and wash the feet of undeserving followers. He will love them and all humanity to the very last, surrendering his life for those who fail to accept or understand him.  

At each step, God is saying “Look! Do you get it now? Do you understand what the Word has been saying in every love, every word of wisdom, every glimmer of starlight, every frosty morning, in everything light and life, beauty, grace, compassion and laughter you have ever known? Can you hear me now?”

I was recently in NICU, visiting parents and their premature infant, tiny, less than five pounds. I watched the parents and a nurse who was at the child’s side every moment. A physician entered to examine the child, listen to her heart and hold out a pinky finger so this fragile little girl could grasp it. There was so much tenderness and care, all awakened by this tiny new life.

In Jesus, the Word becomes a human being, a fragile infant, to awaken such love in us.

Open your eyes to see and your ears to hear. There is no place he is not, nowhere his love is absent, no place he does not speak … that you may know the joy of his presence.

Pr. David L. Miller