In the wilderness

 And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. [Jesus] was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him. (Mark 1:12-13)

It’s been nearly year now that we have wandered in this COVID wilderness, little knowing when or how this will all end. I am not going to suggest that the Spirit of God has led us into this place, but the Spirit has a purpose for us in every wilderness whether we heed it or not.

Biblically, the wilderness was the desert, a barren, waterless waste beyond human control where God shaped the souls of those intended for great and holy purpose. They were driven out there—Moses, Elijah, Jesus—as if they had no real choice in the matter, to be stripped bare and learn the meaning of faith.

The wilderness was a place where faith and despair, service and selfishness battled for their souls. And it’s still true. Our souls, the tenor of our hearts is in play, every day and perhaps especially so in the age of COVID and political turmoil.

Our wilderness confronts us with our need to live in greater harmony with the wild beast of nature. It strips us of the illusion of independence, revealing that we are dependent on angels of mercy who appear in God’s time to nurture and save life from destruction.

Spiritually, the wildernesses confronts us with the question of whether we have any faith that there is an ultimate goodness and grace at work in our existence or whether we all must go it alone.

In the wilderness, we learn to live with patience and trust or we go mad with worry and greed trying to secure our lives against a world deemed dangerous and uncaring. We learn to love and embrace life in all its inscrutable unpredictability, or we become prisoners to fears of whatever is hidden in the shadows we cannot see.

Even without COVID, life can seem a wilderness where the sheer uncertainties of existence test our hearts, tempting us to anger or despair or greed or cynicism or futile attempts to secure ourselves at others expense.

But if the wilderness threatens, it is also the best place, the very best place one can learn to love and to trust there is a Love who inhabits every wilderness.

That’s what Jesus and all those others discovered out there, and it’s still true.

Pr. David L. Miller

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We are his home

 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” (Mark 1:14-15).

Your dearest desire has come true. Look no further; the ultimate need of your heart is standing before you, and his name is Jesus.

The kingdom has come. It is found wherever you find him, wherever human souls gather around him, pray to him, love him, hope to know him and feel his presence in the mystery of their souls. The kingdom comes every time you turn to him in pray and hold his image in your heart.

For he is the kingdom, and his every word, act, correction, glance and touch reveals what the long centuries of human suffering and ruination have hoped to see but thought impossible if not also absurd.  

In him, God’s kingdom—the love and mercy God is—appears, and now all that matters is knowing him; being with him so long and so closely that the love you feel within is no longer you but his presence within you.

But this the very thing post-modern attitudes reject and imagine cannot possibly be true. We do not believe fulfillment of our hearts is possible, and beneath this is the lack of faith that God is ... and is looking for a home where the Holy One can abide and speak the Love for which our aching hearts long.

We are his home, but the home within us is crowded with noise and distraction and all we vainly imagine will fill us if only ... we do just a little more, accomplish something further, grab the next great thing or achieve one last goal.

But it’s never enough; emptiness remains for we are made for more. We are made for an infinite love, for the radiance of divine presence aglow within the mystery of our own depths. And this, this great and holy gift is given the moment we simply admit our emptiness and ask Jesus to give us the mystery of whatever is in him.

So repent; believe the good news. You don’t need to work so hard as if the fulfillment and peace of your soul depends on you. It doesn’t. Jesus stands there, his love aching to pour into you. Home.

Pr. David L. Miller  

 

 

The freedom we need

 

Monday, January 25, 2021

Jesus rebuked him, saying, ‘Be silent, and come out of him!’ And the unclean spirit, throwing him into convulsions and crying with a loud voice, came out of him. They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, ‘What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.’ (Mark 1:25-27)

It is hard to know what to make of exorcism stories in the Bible. Spirit possession seems to belong to a pre-scientific age when people didn’t have more reasonable explanations for certain strange phenomena. But maybe not.

Perhaps I have watched too many hours of news in recent weeks, but it seems we need an exorcism. A variety of demons grip the hearts and enslave the minds of modern Americans, but anger is the most obvious.

And yes, anger is a demon, not merely a psychological state, when it blinds you to the needs, pains and humanity of other human souls. It is a demon when it builds walls that prevent truths (often obvious) you choose not to acknowledge lest they penetrate your mind and change your heart.

An old saying suggests holding angry grudges is like drinking poison and expecting your opponent to die. Hold onto anger, savor and feed it, and it sours into a bitterness that colors everything you see and feel, killing your soul before ushering you to a grave earlier than otherwise necessary.

Like all demons, anger seeks to enslave us so that it colors our vision, preventing us from feeling, receiving and sharing the Love for which we are created, the Love who completes our souls.

The road to freedom involves introspection, noting when and how anger rises within, seeking its real source in our hearts and histories, realizing that it usually flows from old hurts, unhealed wounds and threatened fearful corners of our hearts. Introspection allows us to understand and begin to resist.  

But this is not enough. Only prayer finally frees and heals us: consciously placing ourselves in the presence of the Love God is, opening the heart, becoming vulnerable, speaking our hurts and angry passions.

Prayer, first and foremost, is placing ourselves in the presence of our loving God who is always present. It is opening the heart, becoming accessible to the Love who is always there, eager to release us from the anger that grips the heart. In prayer, the Love God is pours into us, or arises within us by the Spirit, or both. It is hard to describe.

What is certain is that the demon of anger flees in disarray in Love’s presence. Certainly, that anger may return. It didn’t get there in a day and will refuse to die easily. But the Love who frees us is always there to speak the word and free our hearts.

Pr. David L. Miller

 

In the circle

Monday, January 11, 2021

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. (John 14:27)

The contrast could not be sharper. Music filters through the room, gently rising to the ceiling vault, finding the far corners; unseen waves of grace flowing, floating, unhurried, invisible but undeniable as the surrounding air.

A Celtic harp, violin and recorder breathe a haunting Gaelic tune that echoes familiar yet unnamable as the Love that blesses the room, an invocation of grace for the day. It awakens a fountain within that is the Presence of the Love most wanting on the streets that silently rage on the television screen.

A circle of love, of light, surrounds the chair by the window as coffee steams fresh from the cup in my hand, and I sit, here, at the radiant center of the circle, enveloped by this nameless Love whom I have ceased attempting to name. There is no need. This One just is, and is the One I most need.

Nothing seems less relevant to the silent screen on the wall. Perhaps this place of being is just an escape that I should escape and join the fray, weighing in on the rage and insanity that grips the masses, left and right.

This thought pulls at conscience, but long ago I learned, painfully, the anger of human hearts does not work the justice of God. And great anger burns within for those who trade truth for lies and reason for rage.

Worst of all is the blasphemous use of the name, Jesus, to justify the ravages of hate, twisting faces into horrid contortions of lost humanity. There are few things uglier than the face of arrogant, self-righteous rage. Still, I must be careful not to use the name of Love to condemn others as divinely loved as me, however wrong I think them.

But I fear they ... and so many of us ... will become irretrievably lost to rage and fear. Our souls are at stake as well as the lives and hearts of millions and the integrity of a nation. There seems so little any one of us can do. Still, each of us must speak and act, knowing that everything we do and say will fan the fire or quench some small part of it with grace and reason.

Although it seems naïve ... and maybe hopelessly pious ... the only cure I know for these days of rage starts with knowing a Love, a grace, a call that transcends and is greater than self.

So for a few precious minutes, I will sit in this circle, enveloped in this Love who blesses the room and frees the soul.

Pr. David L. Miller   

 

(In)completion

December 30, 2020

‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls (Matthew 11:28-29)

Is there anything you need to do, someone you need to see or hear one more time? I asked the question again recently. The woman seated on the couch across from me was dying. Together, we attended to final things.

Now, the question rebounds to haunt me.

The end of this troubling year and the advent of 2021 awakens pressing questions for which there are no easy answers: What does my heart need to be at peace? What tasks must be done, what loves must be expressed for my heart to feel that elusive sense of completion?

But I know ... nothing is ever enough. The human heart is bottomless. There are no finished symphonies in this life. There is always more love we ache to know and share, always another scene to see, another joy to savor, another hug to hold more tightly than before.

And no matter how much life and love we are graced to know, our hearts still hide volumes that ache to come out and play in the light of day. Completion remains beyond our reach.

Except. There is One ... and one experience that gives rest to the heart. There is One who says, “I complete you. I am the completion you seek in your lonely search in the dark night.”

So I come again to this old chair and ... one more time ... descend into this inscrutable heart that is my own ... and breathe. And there he is, this Mystery, this One, this Love who whispers, "I complete you. Quit trying so hard. Just be here with me and know the Love for which you are made."

And finally, again, I know: Completion is not elusive, but here, now, within, where lives this Love for which the lonely heart longs.

Come to me and rest.

Pr. David L. Miller

 

 

 

 

 

 

For Christmas comes

 

December 25, 2020

The Nativity of our Lord

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome (comprehend) it. (John 1:5)

Wait. Don’t turn away because the opening is dark. This is why Christmas is so bright ... because of the darkness. So linger a moment.

For darkness attends, even on Christmas morning: a bomb in a Nashville street, a woman and child run down by a driver too fast and too afraid to stop, the shrieks of those who love them rising from my morning paper; closer still, the sadness of joys denied and heartaches unhealed.

Darkness attends, but wait ... and watch.

Watch the dark places. Refuse to turn away, for light appears. It always does ... and will, including within you. That’s the way Light is, this One who raptures our hearts this day.

In these older years, I have come to prefer a translation of an ambiguous word that suggests the Light has always been shining, always, through creation and all history, but for the most part we fail to see and comprehend it.

The Light he is, the Light that is never overcome, always there, which means always here. And looking now into the face of the child who comes and loves beyond all human expectation ... now, perhaps, we might see a bit more clearly what always has been and always will be.

So we wait ... and look ... into the brightness  and the dark corners of life, knowing, always knowing Light will come to the cold, dark places in our hearts, so tempted to imagine sadness is the end of things, darkness the victor.

For light appears, and when it does savor it in your heart. Hold it in an open hand like a butterfly that has chosen to perch on your palm for a precious moment ... for reasons you will never understand. (For who can understand this Love?)

Just, do not grasp the moment. Don’t try to hold it fast. You need to keep your hand open, your heart quiet, ready to receive the next moment ... and the next ... and the next ... when light appears.

For Christmas comes ... the Light within all that is light ... to you.

Pr. David L. Miller

 

 

 

 

 

 

O is for oh

 O that you would tear open the heavens and come down. (Isaiah 64:1)

At the back of most Christian hymnals, you can find an index that alphabetically lists the first lines of every song in the book. Find the letter “O,” and you will discover a long list of hymns for which ‘Oh,’ or more simply ‘O,’ is the first word.

I counted 64 songs in our primary Lutheran hymnal that start with ‘oh,’ the most common first word among all the hymns in the book.

But ‘oh’ is barely a word at all. It’s what comes out our mouths when we don’t know what to say, when the emotion of the moment simply forces its way from our throat.

Those 64 hymns, for example, are awash in a boat load of irrepressible emotions: ‘Oh’ is a sigh of longing and a cry for help. It expresses awe and wonder for which no words are possible. It proclaims joy and praise at the utter goodness of being alive and knowing love. It is thanks to the Great Heart who makes it all possible.

Oh is a plea for mercy and the joy of relief. It is startled disbelief at finally finding and knowing the truth your heart most needs. And it is the soul’s highest praise upon feeling the Spirit of that Great Heart within your own.

Oh says very little while saying all that is possible to say. And maybe it is our best prayer right now.

O come, o come Emmanuel. We long for moments when only one word will do.

Pr. David L. Miller

N is for name

Thursday, December 17

They shall name him Emmanuel,’ which means, ‘God is with us.’ (Matthew 1:23)

Names matter as any taunted fourth grader call tell you. Having your name mispronounced or twisted into a demeaning insult stings, sometimes even decades later.

But hearing your name used with care and respect, even love, can lift your heart into the heavens or at least above the grayness of a December day.

Ancient people had much more respect for names than we do. Names weren’t just a label or a way to get someone’s attention but an expression of the essence of the one named. So they chose carefully, refusing to settle on the moniker of a favorite uncle just to be nice.

A chosen name had to be exactly right, capturing their nature, establishing their destiny.

Little wonder, then, that biblical writers tripped over themselves trying to find the right name for the child at whose manger we bow each Christmas. No name says half enough, and everything they suggested leaves you wanting something more to express but a fraction of who Jesus is to millions of souls through the centuries.

In Matthew’s story of the holy birth, an angel comes to his father, Joseph, and declares the boy’s name will be Jesus, which roughly translated is God helps or God saves. That’s good news because we know there are vast parts of us badly in need of saving.

But I like the name given a couple of verses later where Matthew quotes a prophecy, “They shall name him Emmanuel, which means, ‘God is with us.’”

Jesus must have liked this idea, too, because it echoes through his words from time to time. “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there in their midst,” he once said.

Then, there are his final words, as Matthew tells it: “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Somehow he knew; more than anything else, we need to feel him near.

All in all, Emmanuel is as good a name as we’ve got.

Pr. David L. Miller

M is for music

Wednesday, December 16

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!’ (Luke 2:13-14)

One again, we confront a letter with too many Advent possibilities. ‘M’ should be for Mary, the mother of our Lord, who gave Jesus birth and wrapped him in loving care. Can there be any more important ‘M’ as we approach Christmas than Mary? She held the light of the world in her arms and felt his beating heart.  

But there is another Advent ‘M,’ mystery. The divine wonder, the Loving Mystery who is the Source of all life becomes flesh, wears a human face, an infant face, that we might know the Unknowable Love ... God is. The eternal God in mortal flesh, is there a bigger mystery?

But still I must choose a different ‘M,’ music, and here’s why.

The mystery that Immortal Love appears in mortal flesh, born of Mary, cannot be conveyed in preachers’ words or even the most sophisticated intellectual construct. Only music can do this. Words cannot bear the weight of wonder.

But music, say ... a hushed strain of Silent Night, transports the heart into the heart of love God is, rendering words a meaningless distraction.

Early today, Franz Biebel’s Ave Maria whispered through the stereo as the wan, violet light of a winter morning shadowed the living room. Blessed are you if you know the piece. Listening, rapt in its exquisite beauty, refusing to wipe away the tears, my heart knew, beyond any and every word ever spoken, the mystery of this Love who is beyond all knowing.

It’s no wonder the angels sang on that Christmas hillside long ago. Words just wouldn’t do.

Pr. David L. Miller

L is for light

Tuesday, December 15

Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them (Luke 2:9)

The Bible’s stories of Christmas are resplendent in light.

Angels appear flooding the night sky with light, the glory of the Lord startles shepherds on a hillside, a star in the heavens guides wise men to the place where lies a child who is the “light of the world.”

Just so, in the middle of the night on the winter solstice, the “dawn from on high breaks upon us to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.”

Our music savors this contrast of light and darkness: In the dark streets shineth the everlasting light. Or this, Silent night, Holy night, all is calm, all is bright.

Darkness is a symbol for everything that is wrong with the world and us—sin and selfishness, greed and apathy, hunger and injustice, misery of all types amid a world so at odds with itself peace seems impractical and impossible.

But light is the active presence and power of God, the shining forth of God ... everywhere. It is everything that enlightens our pathway to God.

We experience the light of the world in lots of places—in justice and mercy, grace and beauty, every act of care and compassion, in all that is good, right, virtuous and life-giving. Trouble is, most often we don’t know what, make that who, we are seeing.

Which is why the Loving Mystery, who created light before creating anything else, put a human face on the light of the world.

This child in the manger, this Jesus, is the face of the Eternal Light, the heart of the Immeasurable Love, shining forth to light and warm your heart in the bleak midwinter of living.

Pr. David L. Miller

K is for kenosis

Monday, December 14, 2020

Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. (Philippians 2:6-7)

You have likely never heard this world before, but it is written on your soul. It’s pronounced key-no-sis (sis as in sister). It means to empty yourself, to give yourself away for something or someone else, which whether you know it or not is your heart’s desire.

Consider an anecdote told me by a father remembering the day, years ago, he gave an important gift to his daughter. For two weeks afterward, he walked around two feet off the ground, aglow with joy.

What he gave, of course, was himself, a piece of his heart, at personal sacrifice.

Sacrificing out of love, out of the heart’s desire to give itself away, is what kenosis looks like in real life, and it most often results in profound joy for the giver. Such kenotic acts of self-giving are also the kind of thing we most cherish and admire in other human beings.

All this opens a window into the heart of Christ, revealing that we are cherished for more than we imagine.

For Christ emptied himself (kenosis) of divine privilege, stepping out of the heavenly places to be born into a life of poverty in an obscure place and time. His kenosis doesn’t stop there. He gave himself over to rejection and the ugliest death the ancient world had devised.

All this, he does, out of his heart’s desire to show the love he has for you, a love that transcends anything else we shall ever know.

But know this: When you feel that desire to give a piece of yourself away to someone ... that is exactly when you and the baby in the manger are most alike.

Pr. David L. Miller

 

 

 

E is for … everything

Friday, Dec. 4

 

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. (John 3:16)

Oh my, how can I choose? There are so many ‘E’ words connected with Advent and Christmas.

There is expectation and excitement, eagerness and ecstasy, elation and exaltation.

Any one of them can serve as the starting place to explore the extraordinary compassion of God, who embodies the beauty of the divine heart in human form, embracing our messy, mortal lives that we may be filled with eternal love and life.

But if I must select just one word, I choose everything.

Nothing is left out, not me, not you, not the wonder of creation, the farthest star or most infinitesimal particles of nature. Everything, everywhere is embraced by the love of God who takes on human flesh—material reality, earthly stuff—in this child whose face we seek so earnestly as Christmas draws near.

With an everlasting love, God treasures us and takes on our flesh. This also means our flesh is taken into God, joined, combined, made one with the life, the love, the beauty and compassion of God that we might never doubt what God desires for us.

God so loves the world, the whole, crazy, infuriating mess. The great Loving Mystery, whom we shall never understand, embraces it all, holds everything close to the divine heart that all the life and love God is … may flow into us and all that is.

So imagine the child in the manger. Gaze on him whom we call Emmanuel, God with us, and know how graced you are and how beautiful is our God.

Come, Lord Jesus.

Pr. David L. Miller

 

 

 

D is for desire

By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.’ (Luke 1:78-79)

What do you want? The question caught me off guard. It came out of the blue, but I quickly realized my interrogator was asking what I wanted for Christmas.

I stumbled about, having not given it a moment’s thought during this Corona-saturated season.

Then morning came, a new day, light flooding the living room as the radio played the great Amen at the end of Handel’s Messiah, sopranos soaring, filling the room and my heart with the joy of completion.

And there was the answer. This is what I desire, to know this extraordinary love sweeping away every darkness, filling my heart with the joyous light of eternal morning.

This desire is the engine of our spiritual life.

Beneath the wants and wishes of daily life, beyond our hungers for food and safety, companionship and success, a new phone or better home, we want more. Deeper yearnings stir, drawing us toward something hard to name; the desire for I know not what some call it.

Ultimately, this is the desire for God. We yearn to be one, engulfed in the Heart in whom there is no darkness, filled with a Love beyond anything we have ever known—like on a December morning when the sunlight floods the room and tells you what you’ve always wanted … and so desperately need.

So befriend your desires as December deepens; pray them. Sooner or later, they lead you to a manger where lies the desire of your heart.

Pr. David L. Miller

C is for comfort

Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her

that she has served her term … (Isaiah 40:1-2a)

Today, the word is comfort.

A sharp wind cuts through my coat as I shuffle one foot to the other on the oil-stained concrete, impatient for the tank to fill so I can return to the comfort of the car.

Winter stretches long before us, and small comforts beckon—a warm drink, lamplight on a familiar chair, a few precious moments of peace.

Each small grace points beyond itself to deeper things. For comfort is more than relief from the cold.

Comfort is the enveloping warmth of safety where you know that you belong, where strength is renewed, laughter is free and hope is the air you breathe. It is knowing you can just be … nothing else is required.

This is God’s intention, God’s desire. Listen: ‘Comfort, comfort my people. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem.”

It is impossible for me to read these words without hearing the clarion call of the tenor at the start of Handel’s Messiah, announcing God’s intention to be the comfort for which our hearts hunger.

So we pray, Come, Lord Jesus, be our comfort in the cold.

Pr. David L. Miller

B is for born

 Tuesday, Dec. 1

Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.’ (Luke 1:41-42)

Today, the word is born.

A hawk sails through the gray dawn as the weight of November rests heavily on my heart. Perhaps you feel it, too. The want of light stirs rumination as the days grow shorter this time of year.

A story in the paper of a decades old tragedy deepens these reflections. It tells of several nuns who, on Dec. 1, 1958, risked their lives in a roaring conflagration to save dozens of children at Our Lady of the Angels school in Chicago.  They put their bodies between encroaching flames and their children.

The love that so obviously moved them stirs the heart and awakens an insistent question. What longs to be born in me? What blessing, what love, lives in my hidden heart yearning to be given away before my time on this earth is done?

The Christ before whom we bow at Christmas lies within us, pressing on the womb of our souls that we may give birth to a love more beautiful than any we have known.

So, blessed are you, for you, as Mary, carry the Christ. Listen to the still, small voice within you in these darkening days, for it is Christ, there, longing to be born amid joy and wonder.

And pray, ‘Come Lord Jesus, be born in me.’

Pr. David L. Miller

 

Voice of the masters: “What good is it to me if this eternal birth of the divine Son takes place unceasingly but does not take place within myself? … What good is it to me for the Creator to give birth to his Son if I also do not give birth to him in my time and my culture? This, then, is the fullness of time. When the Son of God is begotten in us.”” (Meister Eckhart, 1260-1328)

 

 

A is for Anticipation

Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. (Mark 13:33)

I will be sharing reflections and my experience of the four-week Advent season as it bears us toward Christmas, one day at a time. Each entry will offer a word to carry with you, until evening comes and you lay the day to rest in God’s loving hands.

Today, the word is anticipation.

There are times it is hard to anticipate much of anything positive. Life hits hard and ‘knocks the wind out of our sails.’ We know that old saying and have felt it. You might be feeling it as this disappointing year winds to a weary close.

So many hopes we held for 2020 were dashed, even as some found fulfillment. Even more personally, as for me today, fears for loved ones we cannot help suck life from our lungs, and our hearts faint within.

But it is then, exactly then, Jesus speaks. So listen: "Do not be downcast. Lift your heart, for I will not leave you desolate. I will come and fill the hole in your heart.”

Just so, we live with anticipation, looking to the next moment and then the next and the next, for he is always coming to us. We see him in a manger; we feel him in every breath of beauty and word of grace. We know him in every silent moment when the healing balm of great love flows through our hearts, making us new.

So it is with great anticipation that we pray, “Come, Lord Jesus.”

Pr. David L. Miller

 

 

 

Thank you

Thanksgiving 2020

At that time Jesus 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 (Matthew 11:25)

Breathe, just breathe. Slow down, no. Stop … and sink in.

Sip your coffee or tea or whatever coaxes you from the surface of yourself to that deeper place where gratitude lives, where it is natural as breathing.

Sink into this place of abiding. And be. There.

This is the place of being where you find a wordless joy attached to nothing … but being itself, to the wonder that you are alive, that you are here, that you exist and experience your life as an inscrutable gift from a Source unknown, knowing (as only the heart can) that Source as love writ large, Love, who gives the Life … to you … then leans back and smiles.

And this smile, so felt that even the mind sees, awakens the grace of tears for whatever moves you this day—be it family and friends, work that matters, sunrises and sets, the warmth of the kitchen, the burning candle on the sill, the sparkle of wine, the purr of a kitten or dozing dog at your feet.

Each tear is a pearl of gratitude for the overwhelming goodness of being, for once knowing that everything you see and feel is a gift from that unseen Giver whose smile, in this moment, is the truest thing you shall ever know, for which there are no words … except for a deep, silent thank you.

Sweet these words, yet woefully inadequate to speak what the Great Heart is so pleased to speak in your own.

So accept, O Lord, my wonder as my praise to you this day. It is the only thing I truly have to give.

Pr. David L. Miller

Love's creature

 

They went after false idols and became false. (2 Kings 17:15b)

Morning comes and with it a question. Who am I? What is my ultimate concern, the deepest, highest commitment of my life?

We answer that question with our lives, one day at a time. Each new day is an opportunity to become who we are—or to betray our very selves and the God whose Spirit lives in the deep, inner room of our hearts.

Passions for success, personal acceptance and conformity to whatever is trending in society, all these are subtle seductions—noise drowning out the inner voice of God’s love and justice calling us to faithful living.

If you just go with the flow, you soon become false, losing your soul to trivial pursuits and fleeting fashions that are unworthy of you. But the Spirit of God within your Spirit never ceases to call you home to yourself, for you are so much more.

You are Love’s creature, an image of the God who is Love, intended for heart-to-heart intimacy with the Love who fashioned the stars … and you.

Pr. David L. Miller

For sure

... they are beloved ... for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. (Romans 11:28b-29)

“What do ya’ know for sure?” I still hear the uplift in my father’s voice as he greeted farmers entering Apple River Feed and Seed, our family business.

The most common reply was, “Not much, Lavern; how about you?” With that and a chuckle, business commenced. And why not? Everyone who heard Dad’s voice knew that dusty office was a safe, welcoming space. Not so with much of life.

Threats are real, the future impenetrable, and we cannot fathom the mysteries of what God is working in our world … or in us … at any given moment.

But this you can know ... for sure. God is faithful. Always. God’s loving promises are irrevocable, unbreakable and absolutely certain. Count on it.

With an everlasting love, God claims and calls you beloved. Grace and forgiveness are yours. You are held in a mercy that refuses to turn away. Nothing you do, no trouble that comes will invalidate God’s promise to love, forgive and seek you.

This is the one true thing.

Pr. David L. Miller

The One who hears

Hear my prayer, O God; give ear to the words of my mouth. (Psalm 54:2)

The Holy One hears even when words fail us as so often they do. We sit to speak to God, hoping to express the depth of what is in us. But strands of hope and longing, anxiety and confusion tangle into an inseparable knot impossible to unwind.

We fall silent, restless and without hope of naming what we need, lacking words that speak the ache of our longing.

But do not fear or fall into despair. You are loved beyond all human measure by the One whose compassionate nearness is greater than your heart, more abundant than your need and who smiles at your confusion.

Offer the quagmire of your heart with a single word, “Help.’ Then rest and breathe in the Love who is always with you and always for you.

God’s unfailing love, this alone, unties the kinks in our hearts, breathing peace in our souls. It is then that we find the words we most want and need to speak, “Thank you, dearest God, for hearing my heart and sharing your own."  

Pr. David L. Miller