Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Lent
John 8:37
Jesus said to the Pharisees, “You are ready to kill me, because you have no room for my word.”
Oh, Jesus! My rooms are filled up too, full to bursting. I don’t like the clutter, but it’s hard to let go of the memories, the trophies. And what if I need this stuff again sometime?
Jesus looks at me. His look is gentle and strong. “I have a pearl that is priceless, David. You want this pearl too. Get rid of anything else. I want you to have it. I want to give it to you.
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock,” Jesus says. “Do you have room for me?”
I feel rumbling inside me as the gears of truth settle into their place. What place? Is there room in me for truth? What is truth? I try to say the emblem words of my American generation: “Even truth is relative,” but the words wither on my lips. Truth is standing before me.
If Jesus were a friend, I’d clean up a space, put clean sheets on the bed, warm some milk in the evening for us to drink together, set out some nice clean slippers for him.
We’d talk through ideas about God and break some bread. Fry some eggs. Sizzle some bacon. Then walk into the morning air with coffee, to sit under a tree.
If Jesus were a friend, he wouldn’t ask me for anything more, would he?
But Jesus is one of the anawim. He’s a Hebrew who is “outcast and persecuted and must seek God for justice and help.” Jesus says of the anawim, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.”
Thomas Green says, “Poverty of spirit means to have no will of my own, even a will to become holy. It means having only one will, the will of God, rather than two” (God’s and my own).
This is what Jesus wants from me. Better stated: this is what Jesus wants to give me. I just get out of the way. Make room for him. Invite him in. He will not abuse the welcome; he will give me what I’ve always wanted.
Lord, you keep me safe, you hide me in the shelter of your wings, you set me high on a rock. Â Let me dwell in your house all the days of my life and see your beauty, find your wisdom, know your love, and just be with you.
http://christiancounselingservice.com/archived_devotions.php?article_id=1050
