Beloved of God, grace, and peace to you!
It is once again my joy to welcome to our SMTP family, those who have joined us in recent months. I extend my sincere good wishes, upheld by prayers, for your continued opening to God, who not only calls, but who enables everyone so disposed, to live out their vocation with gladness and singleness of heart!
Opening to GOD, is the title of a book I have been reading for some time now. I find that increasingly, I am drawn to titles that offer the kind of multi-layered spiritual wisdom, which is difficult to appreciate let alone internalize in one, two, or even three, readings. They require careful, unhurried reflection and meditation, to allow for all that God, through the author[s], would have us receive and embrace. Such is this book by David Benner, who invites the reader on a journey of understanding Lectio Divina and Life as Prayer.
In the introduction, Benner makes a statement that I believe we all, at whatever stage of the ministerial spectrum we may fall, need to not only hear, but to take seriously to heart. He says:
“Prayer is not simply words that we offer when we speak to God but an opening of our self to God. Most of us live somewhere between the extremes of being completely closed to God and completely open. This is why I speak of opening. Opening implies not just a position but a direction – a direction of movement toward full openness.”
I hope you will take time this week…this month, to meditate on those words, especially the writer’s understanding of opening and its implications for you, as one with a vocation to serve God and God’s people.
As for me, at this stage of my ministerial journey, having begun some thirty-seven years ago, I find the idea of opening to be an invitation, challenging me to eschew thoughts and/or feelings of having achieved…having arrived at a point of personal satisfaction.
The fact that I am nearing retirement, with unique experiences that have served me well, is in light of eternity, only a few mileposts along the journey (see Psalm 90:4 cf. 2 Peter 3:8). The infinite nature of the Almighty in relation to the finiteness of the human mind and ways of being, must serve as a reminder that length of years do not indicate an end to such opening; in fact, it remains my experience that the older I become, the greater my need to be open to the intimate details of the divine will…to appreciate the apostle Paul’s statement, recorded in Philippians 1:21.
A quote from the late Lebanese American philosopher/poet, Khalil Gibran, comes to mind, and I share it below, in hope that you will meditate on its imagery and hopefully, the invitation to keep opening to God, in and by whom we can be transformed, from glory to glory.
“The river needs to take the risk of entering the ocean because only then will fear disappear because that’s where the river will know its not about disappearing into the ocean, but becoming the ocean.”
Blessed love,
Grace+