My father, our father –
You alone are God. You are the creator of everything.
Everything, everything, comes from you and belongs to you. You are without limits. You are good – good beyond the understanding of me or of any other human. In your goodness, you gave to us the power to create and freedom to make choices. Even the freedom to choose “no” to you, “yes” to me, and “my will not thy will be done”. Even the freedom to be horribly, catastrophically wrong. And you did that, despite knowing very well that I – that each of us – would choose to abuse this power. We take the serpent’s bait, over and over and over.
But also in your goodness, in your omnipotence, you provided a way back to you. You saw the death in our choices, and giving of yourself you provided a new path to life. You gave your only begotten son, who invited us to “follow me” on his lonely, deathpath walk to Calvary, to put to death our old life and be born into a new one. And in doing so, you again affirmed your unfathomable love for us. You love us, and want nothing more than for us to say “yes” to the life you offer – a life of original freedom, newly rediscovered freedom, found ironically in relinquishing our illegitimate claim to control.
And if, if we change our “no” to a “yes”, we discover the miracle of the tree of life growing within us. Not an object to behold, not a fruit to be stolen, but life from the source of life itself.
Father, let me grow close. Let me abide in you. Help me to be still and tap your living water. Help me learn to trust and not to try daily to steal control. And let me be a vessel from which others too, can find the life you give.
Thank you Jesus. Thank you Holy Spirit. Thank you Father.