Let it shine

‘You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:14-16)

Let it shine

Luciana’s photo popped up on her mom’s Facebook page. The photo was blurry and a little dark, but her unmistakable, toothy grin shined even brighter than the flame on the baptismal candle sparkling in her eyes.

She’s six now, and that candle has been lit on her baptismal anniversary every year since the day I poured water over her head and held up her candle for everyone one to see. The candle burns … reminding her who she is.

She is a beloved child of God, a holy vessel of an everlasting love. The light of God’s joy and love dances in her eyes and illumines the heart of her family … and of our congregation.

Days will come that darken her eyes, when doubts appear, when she imagines she has done something wrong, when she feels rejected or doesn’t feel “good enough.” Moments of sadness will shadow her smile when loss and disappointments cause her to forget how precious and beautiful she is … and how much we need the love shining from her heart.

Whenever happens for her … or for any of us, I hope there is something or someone to whisper the truth: You are the light of the world. The love of Jesus shines in your heart. 

Never forget. This is who you are. So let it shine.

Pr. David L. Miller

Blessed are you

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying: ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:1-3)

Blessed are you

Even here, even now, you are blessed, no matter what joy or struggle is yours today. Look and see.

Jesus looks and sees the crowds. They are male and female, young and old, sick and well, poor and, well, most are very poor. He sees beyond outward appearance to the urgency of their hearts, eagerly waiting, hoping to hear something that will bless and fan the flame of hope.

But he sees even more. Jesus sees the everlasting love of God at work in all of life and in their lives. They are blessed, but they do not see it.  

The poverty of their hearts is the presence of God’s Spirit drawing them to the fullness of love that is theirs. Their sadness over losses and painful lives opens their souls to the One who will pour life and love into their hurts.

Their hunger for mercy and peace reveals the Spirit laboring deep within them, crying out for God to heal the cycle of hurt and retribution that has scarred human history ever since Cain killed Abel.

Their thirst for righteousness is a prayer for the kingdom of heaven to fill the world with the very compassion with which Jesus sees the crowds as they gather around him.

The kingdom of blessedness is alive within them, working, praying, aching, crying out, drawing them to the feet of the One who will open their eyes to the everlasting love who heals their hearts and the troubled world they inhabit.

Blessedness is the deepest truth of their lives … and ours. So open our eyes, Lord, that we may see and know blessing you are. 

Pr. David L. Miller

Everyday salvation

Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying, ‘Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.’ (Luke 2:28-32)

Everyday salvation

Hope for more. Every day. Hope to see God’s living presence, fulfilling the divine promise to be present to save you from everything that crushes your spirit and steals joy from your heart.

The Holy One is always present to save. God is a saving God, always and ... in every circumstance. The Loving Mystery invites us to wake each day with a fresh and living hope that today, this very day, we can and will see salvation no matter what else is happening for us.

Simeon goes to the temple each day hoping to see the fulfillment of God’s promise. He wants to hold it in his hands and feel it in his heart. He hungers to be lifted into joy so that he can live and die in peace, knowing God’s faithful love.

Holding the infant Jesus, he gazes into the light of God’s loving presence and knows the salvation God intends for all people. For us.

Every day is a day of salvation. The living, loving presence of the One Simeon held and praised is present in everything that gives life, in every beauty, in every joy, in every moment that awakens love in our hearts. 

God is faithful love who is always present, coming to us in every love ever we ever know, longing for us to open our eyes to see and our hearts to receive the salvation that is ours. 

We experience salvation each time we feel the warm light of love’s presence making us whole and complete. Our circumstances may be wonderful or laced with loss and sorrow. Still, God comes in every love, every hope, every word of peace and promise that we, like Simeon, may see the face of salvation.

Look for this. Every day.

Pr David L. Miller

Not common at all

When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the law of the Lord, ‘Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord’), and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, ‘a pair of turtle-doves or two young pigeons.’ (Luke 2:22-24)

Not common at all

Nothing could be less conspicuous—a peasant couple in ancient Palestine doing what the law of their religion required. They go to the temple to offer the prescribed sacrifice.

There was no apparent reason for anyone to pay them much attention. This was routine in their culture, something that needed to be done, and they did it out of faithfulness to the God and faith of their people.

It is impossible for me not to love them as I imagine the two in common dress, bearing their child, ascending the steps of the temple mound—people of the land to whom those better off and better positioned paid little mind.

They remind me of the greatness of small things and the wonders so-called common folk do as they live and love, faithfully caring for children and the everyday needs life lays on their shoulders.

Long it has been said that the most significant things, the most beautiful acts, are done quietly, in out of the way places, by unassuming people … when no one is watching.

Routine, it seems, never is, but is rather the place of greatest loves and care, revealing the most profound faithfulness we can offer each other and the Love who breathes through smallest moments.

Of course, this was no common moment. Those two peasants carried the child who shines with the light of the divine heart. But then, we bear that light, too, our privilege and joy to play a part, however small or unnoticed, in God’s great love affair with the world.

Not common at all.

Pr. David L. Miller

Morning Mystery

Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. (Psalm 90:14)

Morning Mystery

Hands in the sink, immersed, the water hot, dishes from last night and morning’s breakfast. First, the small plates, the cup from which I drank tea, three coffee cups, a glass, a few forks, the knife bearing a trace of peanut butter, the spoon with which I ate oatmeal.

Each washed in the warmth embracing my hands, lifted from one sink to the next, there to be rinsed in water hot from the tap, soap draining off each one until the clear glass bowls glisten wet, ready for the white towel.

Out the window, a flash of red splits the dense, January gray, and perches on the birch, a woodpecker? What are you doing here? Don’t you have someplace warmer to be?

Back to the bowls, the small plates, the cups, each rubbed dry and stacked atop their fellows in the cupboards.

But what is this within? From where does it come?

Amid mundane repetitive motions, daily chore becomes prayer; wordless but undeniable love awakens within and warms body and soul … even more than the water that is grace and balm on winter hands.

A simple task, the mind barely engaged, becomes prayer in itself, love filling the heart and speaking a deep, silent thank you for one’s life.

Neither heart nor mind summoned this moment. It just is. It just comes, unbidden—this Heart deeper than my own filling every inward space, this Love who invites me to love it all, the whole mysterious mess of living, knowing at the heart of it … and at the heart of the mystery that is myself … lives this Mystery.

A holy gift, all of it. Everything. Thank you.

 Pr. David L. Miller

Love’s yearning

Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought to him all the sick, those who were afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and he cured them. (Matthew 4:23-24)

Love’s yearning

Hills rise quickly behind the village of Capernaum where Jesus made his home after leaving Nazareth. On the far northern shore of the Sea of Galilee, Capernaum was a fishing town, a trading town on the border between the rule of two regional governors.

Today, ruins of an ancient synagogue stand 100 meters or so from the shoreline, a few pillars and paving stones weathered and pocked by shuffling feet and exposure to the elements. The lake, blue and wind-whipped on summer afternoons, stretches eight miles wide and extends 15 miles south from this point.

It’s not hard to visualize Jesus walking the shoreline, talking to young men that soon followed on a journey that would cost them their lives and everything familiar to them.

Nor is it difficult to imagine the faces of anxious souls, filled with the kind of yearning only love begets, dragging their broken ones down the grassy hills, golden in summer’s sun, eyes up, alert, eager for this man rumored to have healing power … and a heart to share it.

Imagine their faces, the yearning, the hope, their love for those they drag to Jesus. See, too, the gathering around Jesus, a little community of hurt and hope forming around him.

Jesus’ message is etched in their faces, in the ache in their moist eyes. This is the Kingdom of Heaven, this gathering of those who love, this congregation of love’s yearning for the Love who yearns for us.

Two longings meet at this ancient place, the hope of the broken for life and the heart of the One who is life.

And not just there, but here, too, and now. Wherever human longing meets Love’s presence … the kingdom comes.

Pr. David L. Miller

  

That we may shine

John answered them, "I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal." (John 1:26-27)

That we may shine

He always stands among us, this One for whom we wait, ever near, waiting to be recognized.

We were not present along Jordan’s stream where John, the Baptizer, prepared human hearts and minds to receive the Christ soon to appear. But the Spirit of he who is Life and Love breathes in people and places you do not know, a mystery living among us whom we dare not miss lest we miss our life.

For he is our life; he is Life itself, the source from whom we come and to whom we go when this life is done with us. The soul’s joy and fulfillment, the final satisfaction of our hearts rises within us as we see and know him.

So surprise us, blessed Christ; startle and wake us from sleep that we see and love you in every place of our habitation. Grant that we may know your love in the curve of every smile that lifts our hearts.

Open our hearts to every soul we meet, especially those most in need, for you wait there, eager for us see and love you who are Love … that the everlasting circle of Love’s self-giving may course among us.

Open our eyes to see you in the ebullient blue of sun-kissed winter mornings, even as we wait, impatiently, for earth’s greening to come once more to announce the resurrection you bring to us every morn … and in every moment of seeing you.

We need to wake to your presence and feel you present within us, for you are Life. You are our peace.

So shine, would you please, on this new day. Reveal your face that ours may shine, too.

Pr. David L. Miller

As the year turns, see

And 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. (John 1:14)\

Seeing him

Yes, we have seen glory, the glory of a Love of supernal proportions, and we dare believe this Love is our truest identity, our surest companion and the final destination of our being.

Jesus, the Christ, is the eternal Word God speaks that we may know the grace of the Everlasting Love who is forever for us.

He touched and healed, welcomed and blessed, bled and died, enduring human perplexity and hardness from friend and foe alike, forgiving their worst and inviting their best.

Seeing him enchants the heart, hungry as we are to know a Love beyond all others, a Love that frees from the fears that keep us from sharing the hope and hurt, love and joy hiding beneath the carefully curated faces we show the world.

Seeing him excites desire to know more, feel more, love more and crowd closer to his heart, for there we know we are safe. We know a truth that doesn’t change as the calendar page turns.

He is the same, yesterday, today and tomorrow.

So we offer our New Year prayer to see him more clearly, love him more dearly and follow him more nearly in the year to come. It is this we most need, lest our souls grow cold in this world so desperately needing the warmth of his divine heart … and ours.

And we look for him in the faces of friends and strangers, hoping to see to see some reflection of the Love he is, needing to be reminded that he walks with us even when we are least aware of his nearness.

Seeing him awakens our love for the Love who is our hope every day … and especially as the years turn.

Pr. David L. Miller

Waiting & knowing

There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age …. She never left the temple but worshipped there with fasting and prayer night and day. At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem. (Luke 2:36-38)

We have seen God’s salvation. We have heard the tale once more and imagined Jesus’ infant face in a dark stable.

Having seen him, we remember the tenderness of our own children, tiny hands clutching our finger, the comfort of flesh-to-flesh, wordless love filling our eyes with tears of wonder and praise for the Source of life.

Those moments teach us salvation’s truth, the wholeness of a love that can fill the soul beyond any capacity. This is redemption of our humanity, the awakening of a love that fills every corner of our being, flushing out every doubt, all despair and any cynicism we feel about the emptiness of life or absence of God.

And now, having been touched again by the miracle of his love, we wait. This is our life, the life of faith. We see and know that God is faithful to the promise of presence. The Holy One comes in this child that we may see and fall in love with him that every broken place in our hearts and history might find healing.

We wait and hope, like old Anna, that this faithful God, who loves beyond our imagination, will come to us again … and again … and again ... long beyond our Christmas celebrations.

And like her we pray and watch, doing so as those who know, who have been graced with moments of Love’s fullness redeeming our humanity, forgiving every sin, lifting us from every failing, reminding us that the One who comes will again. 

Every day. Just watch. It’s a promise.

Pr. David L. Miller

Soul secret

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. (John 1:1-3)

The human heart, our hearts, long for unity, for the peace that comes when we rest, one with ourselves, with the Love that we, each, essentially are.

For we, too, are words made flesh, having come to be through him, through this Love who shines in the face of Christ, through the Love that inebriates the heart during this holy season when we become more ourselves than we usually are.

Perhaps it is the act of giving gifts, the excitement of finding (actually, stumbling on) and buying that one thing, no matter how seemingly small or insignificant, which symbolizes the love we know and share with another human soul.

Yes, maybe this is what puts us in touch with our deep inner selves, with the presence of soul that is Christ, the Love who resides in our deepest inner room, waiting release into the world through our words and acts.

Behold, I stand at the door and knock, Christ says in this and every season. He is not outside your being but within, Love awaiting release.

This blessed season—its colors and cheer, haunting melodies of love and longing, the gifts through which we give ourselves—charms and enchants us until we release the anxieties that demand we do more, know more, earn more and have more.

The more we need is already ours, already within, a Love greater than any we’d dreamed knocks on the inner door our hearts, waiting for us to look and see, look and feel, look and know the beauty we hide within, the secret of our souls.

Christ. Christ is the secret of your soul. Deep within, you are the Love that shines in Jesus of Nazareth. Seeing him again, his birth in this blessed season, we see the wonder of God’s face and the face we hide within.

Christ comes, the Love he is, that knowing him, we might know and live the Love we are, at peace, finally, with the secret of our souls.

Pr. David L. Miller

Love … and nothing but

All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel.’ (Matthew 1:22-23)

These are days of waiting, working, preparing … and hoping. Christmas is near, stirring hope that the holy season will fulfill its promise.

Moments come when our hearts stand in the open field of their emptiness longing for a moment of visitation, for a surge of inimitable Love to wash over and transport us into the joy and peace that fills the void within.

This season like the year that precedes is replete with noise and the restless rushing about with which we would fill that void. But in this season we are reminded that Love is the only rightful resident of that holy space.

Just so, we want … and need … to be carried away by the lights, by a song, by a poignant memory … by something  … to that space deep within where communion with Love happens ... that for at least one precious moment … we might know Love … and nothing but.

It is then that we know Emmanuel. We may not be able to describe it or say much about it. The Love Who Is has a way of lifting us into the sweet silence of knowing—knowing, too, that there is nothing better or more complete than this knowledge that can never be reduced to mere words.

So the days grow near for us to gaze again at the child who bears Love’s face, to see him in the manger and watch the shepherds in their bewildered stupor, transfixed, as are we, by Mary, his mother, whose “let it be” are the greatest words a human soul can ever say, an abandonment to Love’s holy will.

And we ask, hope and wait for him to fill every void, every dusty corner of our being that we, as she, might abandon ourselves to Love and nothing but.

Pr. David L. Miller

Love’s secret

And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus.

 (Luke 1:31)

Love labors in the silent darkness, far from garish lights that blind our eyes to all that is truly holy. Love toils secretly where no one can see, working out its holy purpose that the wonder of every age may appear according to the inscrutable timing of the divine heart.

What was it, Holy One, that you should think, “Here and now, in this girl, I will fulfill my heart’s desire to live among human hearts with a human heart all my own, feeling everything life holds and every fear death stirs?

Your life stirred in the secret darkness of Mary’s young womb—she of no renown, living in a place the world would have forgotten long ago, if not for the child she birthed.

You chose Mary, which should spark a flame of hope in every human breast, especially when we wonder if our lives have mattered … or if they still can.

For in an out-of-the way place, in this peasant girl, eternity entered time. Through Mary, you blessed the world and every moment of history with a light that has never gone out … and never will.

And we who need the light of this child to shine in us, hunger to hear the divine promise to Mary ringing also in our ears.

“You will conceive.” Sounds strange, but each of us is pregnant with the light of God, eager to fill us and be born, bursting out in a love that fills our eyes with tears and our words with blessing for every broken heart and troubled space we encounter.

Sit in the silence and know … the Holy One, the Loving Mystery whom we will never understand, toils in the darkness of your soul, hidden, unknown, until those moments when you feel new life, Love, that is … stirring within for this weary old world, and oh-so blessedly for our own weathered hearts.

Pr. David L. Miller

Say ‘yes’

Then Mary said, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." Then the angel departed from her. (Luke 1:38)

Mary said, “Yes.”

She didn’t know what would happen to her or to her child. She had no idea of the elation and sorrow the years would bring. She couldn’t know she would experience the most searing pain a parent can ever know. She barely knew who she was at her tender age.

She knew only that her heart needed to say, “Yes,” to this divine messenger bearing strange and unexpected news, a request that comes to each of us, wherever we are and regardless of our age.

Love longs for your consent, your surrender to Love’s will to do in you what only Love can do.

Love, the Holy Mystery, speaks in our silence when the clamor of the daily fades away. In the quiet, we feel and know the whisper of truth … we are made for something more. Made for Love, we are, for this Love who took birth in Mary, the Mother of our Lord.

Nothing else finally satisfies—successes, happy times, the diversions, entertainments and substances with which we distract ourselves from the One who speaks in our silence. Nothing else is enough.

Only Love will do, the Love who longs to be born in you, to fill you, the Love whose voice gets drowned out by all the stuff our culture suggests is “really living.’

We are what we are, beings made by the Love who is born in human form from Mary’s “yes.’  Love speaks in your silence, longing for your “Yes.”

Most us, like Mary, don’t know who we are half the time. We don’t know exactly where we are going, and we haven’t a clue where our lives will end up.

But we know you are Love, Holy One, so please, be born in each of us.

Nothing else will do.

Pr. David L. Miller

That we may know

 At that same hour Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, 'I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. (Luke 10:21)

 Flood my soul with knowledge of you, heavenly Father. As you filled my brother, Jesus, with your presence, fill me to overflowing that I may know and serve you with fullness of heart in freedom and joy.

This is your will. I see it in Jesus’ joy as I study his face looking to heaven, thanking you that those he chose, so slow and plodding, should know the mystery for which every human heart longs.

We long to know … you. We long to feel you not as a separate entity, someone or something apart from ourselves, but within, to feel you one with our deepest heart, communing in a great love that fills our hearts and bursts from our lips in the only words that will do, Thank you! Thank you. Thank you.”

Thank you for exquisite moments of knowing sweet oneness with you, your heart wrapped around my own, holy union, giving rest and peace, stilling all desire for anything more.

What more can there be? This is the ultimate, the end fulfillment of every human soul and of your gracious will … that we should know and enjoy the wonder you are, lost in thanks to you who are the Love that moves the moon and the stars … and this heart.

Moments of blessed communion fade. Our hearts cool. What once was intimate grows distant. Such is our human lot and weakness. We are as slow and plodding as those Jesus first chose to know what he knew.

But even this blesses, moving us to pray again, “Flood my soul. Fill my heart. Wrap your love around me that I may know … you.”

This is your will and our greatest need.

Pr. David L. Miller

Speak the word

When Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, appealing to him and saying, "Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, in terrible distress." And he said to him, "I will come and cure him." The centurion answered, "Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only speak the word, and my servant will be healed.” (Matthew 8:5-8)

He knew, this Centurion. He recognized the desire at the heart of Jesus. As much as he understood Jesus’ power to heal, he trusted more this loving desire to make the broken whole, to free the paralyzed from distress.

I am not worthy of you, he says, but I know you will not hold this against me or refuse the one I love so much that I am humbly here asking for what you alone can give.

You do not look upon our worthiness, O Lord, but on the need of our hearts. You see our paralysis, the hurts and longings that imprison our hearts. It is for our freedom that you come to us, your heart open, eager to liberate us from everything that drains the energies of joy and hope.

We are not worthy of you, and we do not know how to receive you except by humbly asking you to speak the word.

Speak the word that frees our hearts from the grip of our fears.

Speak the word that heals wounds we have carried for so long that we despair of healing.

Speak the word that tells us you cherish us despite our worst selves.

Speak the word that lifts our hearts from gray haunts of sadness into the golden light of morning.

Speak the word of everlasting love that fills us as a glass overflowing until we know we are yours and always will be.

Speak the Love that fills your heart that ours may receive the healing you alone can give.

Pr. David L. Miller

Who knows?

Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. (Matthew 24:42)

How many times have you come to me, Lord, and I missed you entirely, lost in living, unconscious amid the urgency of whatever the day requires?

I wonder, do you get lonely for me? Do you miss me when my heart wanders, and I fail to speak heart-to-heart with you?

Sometimes I picture you standing alone, waiting for me to notice, wondering when my loneliness will hurt badly enough that I beg you to come and pour your love into my heart and still the ache that tells me how desperately I need you.

But you do not wait. You come. You have been coming to me since the days I walked my dog to the fairgrounds and released her from the chain, and she ran, a blond blur of hair flying in the wind. It was there that I sang hymns and prayed prayers and longed to be as free as this beautiful creature romping across the broad field, daring me to catch her.

I’m not sure who was happier, me or my dog. Nor do I understand why this image from nearly six decades ago should impress itself on my consciousness, today.

Unless, you are trying to show me that you have been coming to me for my entire life, since I was a boy, hoping I would notice the Love who longs for me… and is this longing in me to know you, the Love who comes, who is my healing, my freedom, my joy.

Who knows how and where you come to us … or when we might notice? It’s always a mystery. We know only that you do … and always will.

So, thank you, dearest Friend, for coming to find and gather me in during those early days before I understood what was happening in me. Thanks for the ache in my heart that wakes me to you who comes to love … me.

And while I’m at it, thank you for coming here and now, today.

Pr. David L. Miller

Fields of gold

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. (Philippians 4:4)

Thanksgiving meant more to me on the plains of Nebraska than at any other time, or so it seems as I look back. It was only for five years, but the annual cycle lived there still lives in me.

We lived and died in concert with nature. Autumn was the time of sowing wheat, hoping it would soon spring up before falling asleep under ice and snow, as bitter winds bit your cheeks and made you wonder how anything could live through winter’s blast.

As nature slept, we waited in hope for the day green shoots, still sheathed in ice, would appear alive and luminous to excite our hearts with the wonder that life didn’t die in the dead of winter.

You knew it was coming. It happened every year, but you never took it for granted. It never got old. It was an extraordinary joy. Hearts brimmed with hope at the greening of the earth, making us fresh and new as the wonder of life’s unspeakable goodness.

Anxious days were not done. Would rains come? Would insects devour? Would hail destroy the crop on the eve of harvest? Too often, it happened. And then, would the price per bushel drop? So little control over any of these things.

I suppose this is why there are few sights in nature more beautiful than waves of golden wheat flowing in the wind across broad fields as harvest draws near. Anxiety over the seed, winter, drought, insects, hailstorms and disease fades, and hearts get antsy, eager to gather it all in and run fingers through harvested grain, seeds flowing between your fingers, feeling the gift of it all and the glory of participating in the miracle of every single grain.

No one had to tell you to be thankful; you just were … for the privilege of sharing in the wonder of life and the holy goodness of seedtime and harvest.

As years pass, I have come to see that I am like the wheat, all of us are. We are seeds planted in the soil of an uncertain world where threats are as real as hope, God’s hope, that with time and care, our lives will produce a harvest as beautiful as the fields that call out to me, today.

Thank you, blessed Lord, for all they gave me.

Pr. David L. Miller

Today & every day

When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, "Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today." So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. All who saw it began to grumble and said, "He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner." (Luke 19:5-7)

I must stay with you today. And then tomorrow, and then the next and then ….

That’s me. My heart leaks, which means I must return to you every day or be content with the ache that comes when I feel far from you. But this is not how you want me or anyone to live.

This gives me a clue about that must in your heart.

Zacchaeus needed you, Jesus. His life was a crooked mess. You invited yourself to his dinner table to let him know something he’d forgotten, but which I suspect he wanted back.

He’d forgotten himself, his identity. He’d cooperated with oppressors for so long, collecting their exorbitant taxes, that he didn’t know who he was, a child of God’s promise who was blessed to be a blessing, intended to know the exquisite joy of love passing through his being.

You knew this joy and wanted it for him, Jesus. I must bless this man, this lost heart, and bring him home. The voice of the Great Love in your heart moved you to call Zacchaeus down from his tree and back to himself.

Zacchaeus is a stand-in for every one of us. His need is ours. We lose ourselves. Amnesia absorbs our hearts, and we totally forget that we are children of the Great Love who calls us home that we might become ourselves.

And that is why I must be here, and it is why you are here, for me, for every one of us. Today and every day.

Pr. David L. Miller

In your presence

As he approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. … Jesus stood still and ordered the man to be brought to him; and when he came near, he asked him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ He said, ‘Lord, let me see again.’ (Luke 18:35, 40-41)

The blind man wanted to see. And I? I want to be.

I want to be in your presence, Jesus. I want to know you, your life and heart filling me with peace and gentle joy so that I need and long for nothing more … than more of you.

Come to me, you once said, and I will give you rest. Most of the time I feel not rest but restlessness, my life incomplete and unfulfilled, failing whatever hope and promise you had in me and that I once had for myself.

Accusing voices rise from dark unconscious in the wee hours, taunting and reminding me again of how little I have given and brought into this world.

I know those voices come from the evil one, the enemy of our souls, and I know that morning light will scatter the darkness and send the voices back to whatever dusty, unredeemed corner of my heart from which they rose.

I know this. I truly know this. But ... there are nights the voices still haunt me, now well into my seventh decade when there is far more of this life behind me than ahead. Nothing I have done or can do silences them, even though they are less frequent now.

And this if the core truth. I cannot stop them. But you can. And have. And will again. This I know.

What do you want? You ask me … and all of us. What do you really want?

Only this, to see you, to know you, to feel my heart always in your presence, to know this inimitable Love filling me complete so that I long and need nothing more. Than you.

Pr. David L. Miller