Good morning…
Walking with a friend before church yesterday, we touched on a truth Richard Rohr shared in his 1.10.16 online devotional. So instantly she forwarded his words from her phone to my email. After our walk, these words reached from my computer into my soul.
Rohr writes: “In fact, God is in us, and in everything else that God created. We all have the divine DNA; everything bears the divine fingerprint, if the mystery of embodiment is true… This became so clear to me in a chance encounter with a recluse near the Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani in Kentucky, when I did a retreat at Thomas Merton’s hermitage in 1985. A recluse is a hermit’s hermit. Recluses come into the community only for Christmas and Easter. The rest of the time, they stay in the forest alone with God and themselves.
I was walking down a little trail when I saw this recluse coming toward me. Not wanting to interfere, I bowed my head and moved to the side of the path, intending to walk past him. But as we neared each other, he said, “Richard!” That surprised me. He was supposed to be a recluse. How did he know I was there? Or who I was?
He said, ‘Richard, you get chances to preach and I don’t. When you’re preaching, just tell the people one thing: God is not “out there”! God bless you.’ And he abruptly continued down the path. Now I have just told you what he ordered me to do. God is not out there!”
Chewing on wisdom my mind mulls: if God is not out there and instead God is in us, we possess the very power that raised Jesus from the dead. Empowered by the Almighty, we seek to live as Jesus lived, listening attentively to our heavenly Father and enduring the pains of human existence, accessing the LORD’s help to forgive those who hurt us and living wholeheartedly for the purposes of God.
The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you, Romans 8:11 (NLT),
Sue
