GLORIOUS HOPE

Where does this glorious hope reside? I read that it is "Christ in you, the hope of glory", that means there is a hope that resides within me. Is it my hope, I dont believe so...it is the hope of God through His Son... it is the hope of the world revealed in the Sons of God that all of creation is groaning and waiting for.

How can such a hope reside in the midst of sin and broken pieces of life? Because Life Himself was broken for you and me.

A glorious vessel of purity and peace, broken open for us so that the precious life that flowed out of Him on the cross, the blood that was shed, made a way for something of heaven to reside in a man or a woman.

How incomprehensible to our selfish human hearts this is!

The preciousness of heaven poured out upon the earth, the most precious gift that God the Father could possibly give He gave because of the overwhelming love He has for each of us.

I sense that the breaking of the heavenly, so that forgiveness and peace might be ours, is so seldom before us in the life we live and the things we do.

Would our circumstances be too hard if we could see heaven breaking above us?

Would our pain be too great if we could see heaven shattered by it?

Would our trial be too difficult to overcome if we would see heaven overcoming it in an instant of time?

O Lord, open up our hearts and eyes to see that there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING You have not already overcome for us in that moment of pouring out and breaking.

In the tearing of His body, there was a tearing of the veil between God and His children.

Dearest, most generous and compassionate Lord, may we learn to see the breaking over our individual lives that it might be effective today and always.

FLAMES OF FIRE

His messengers are 'flames of fire' - just how fired up are we? Would anyone meeting me know that there is fire inside of me that burns with passion that is way beyond anything this world has to offer? Do each of us have any idea, or any desire, to have the smoldering coals that we call faith burst into life in a way that will not only change things around us, but bring us into disrepute in some quarters and cost us dearly?

How much do we truly desire this fire, that we could sing the amazing revival song :

"O God of burning, cleansing flame, send the fire!

Your blood-bought gift today we claim, send the fire today!

Look down and see this waiting host,

And send the promised Holy Ghost,

We need another Pentecost,

Send the fire today.

We have seen God move in many ways, but would we yet say we have had another Pentecost as we look at what remains after the fire?

What will it take? What would you give us God if we cried out loudly enough? How much of what you pour out could we manage to carry?

There are many questions, and while we ask them people are dying. Dying for lack of God, for lack of love, for lack of hope, for lack of healing, for lack....lack....lack.

Do we sufficiently feel that lack? Does it become our magnificent obsession to be in some supernatural way empowered by God to carry His fire and His flame out into the needy world - they will not be neutral - they will either love and embrace this or hate it and persecute!

HIS messengers are FLAMES OF FIRE!

CHALLENGES OF PRAYER

In the midst of preparing notes for a teaching stint in a local church I have to examine one more time what I think and believe prayer to be, or rather, not what I think but what does THE TRUTH say about it.

Every time I do this I am challenged to change my thinking in some area or another. At the very least my understanding is deepened by this challenge with the hope that those on the receiving end are going to benefit in some way!

In the preparation and my personal reading I came across a gem from Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk with a great gift of communciation that helps us understand the monastic life of prayer, its benefits and its trials. So here, in case it blesses someone else in their search, is a quote from "The Sign of Jonas" by Thomas Merton.

"Contemplative prayer is the recognition that we are the sons of God, and experience of who He is, andof His love for us, flowing from the operation of that love in us. Contemplative prayer is the voice of the Spirit crying out in us 'Abba, Pater'. In all valid prayer it is the Holy Ghost who prays in us: but in the graces of contemplation He makes us realize at least obscurely that it is He who is praying in us with a love too deep and too secret for us to comprehend. And we exult in the union of our voice with His voice, and our soul springs up to the Father, through the Son, having become one flame with the Flame of their Spirit. The Holy Ghost is the soul of the Church and it is to His presence in us that is attributed the sanctity of each one of the elect. He prays in us now as the Soul of the Church and now as the life of our own soul - but the distinction is only real in the external order of things. Interiorly, whether our prayer be private or public it is the same Spirit praying in us: He is really touching different strings of the same instrument.