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| Pentecost/He Qi |
I have days when I’m confident Christ’s love is pulsing in my heart and flowing through all my veins. And other days, I’m a tumbleweed of a soul, a dry tangle of brush, blown here and there where any stray breeze might take me.
Outside my anxieties, beyond the throes of romance, absent the imperatives of danger: what, who impels me?
Whose wisdom drives my choices and decisions? Whose strength pushes my will past satisfied contentment? Whose force empowers me to do what’s right and just?
Who impels my life? my ways? my reason for being?
With Christ at the wheel my course is clearly charted, my sails billow with the Spirit’s breath and I cross the roughest seas like a well bred mariner ought to do. But apart from Christ to captain my journey and the Spirit to fill the sheets, my sails flag and I stall in the doldrums, listless and lost. My resolve wanes and my firm “Yes” and my determined “No” become an ambiguous “maybe,” a weak “I’m not sure,” an unpromising, “maybe tomorrow.”
Only Christ’s Spirit has power to fill my sails and bring me back to life. Only Christ’s love will forge my choices in wisdom, keep me from my selfish ways, and strengthen me to do what’s just. Only when the love of Christ impels me will my old order pass away and all things be made new in my heart.
* My reflection appeared in the June 2013 issue of Give Us This Day
Outside my anxieties, beyond the throes of romance, absent the imperatives of danger: what, who impels me?
Whose wisdom drives my choices and decisions? Whose strength pushes my will past satisfied contentment? Whose force empowers me to do what’s right and just?
Who impels my life? my ways? my reason for being?
With Christ at the wheel my course is clearly charted, my sails billow with the Spirit’s breath and I cross the roughest seas like a well bred mariner ought to do. But apart from Christ to captain my journey and the Spirit to fill the sheets, my sails flag and I stall in the doldrums, listless and lost. My resolve wanes and my firm “Yes” and my determined “No” become an ambiguous “maybe,” a weak “I’m not sure,” an unpromising, “maybe tomorrow.”
Only Christ’s Spirit has power to fill my sails and bring me back to life. Only Christ’s love will forge my choices in wisdom, keep me from my selfish ways, and strengthen me to do what’s just. Only when the love of Christ impels me will my old order pass away and all things be made new in my heart.
* My reflection appeared in the June 2013 issue of Give Us This Day
Let us pray...
Come, Holy Spirit:
be the wind in my sails,
the light in my mind
and the strength of my soul...
Come, Holy Spirit:
bind me to Christ,
to his truth, his grace
and his gospel of peace...
Come, Holy Spirit:
on good days and bad
bring the gifts that you offer
and the joy my heart seeks...
H/T A Concord Pastor Comments
