Good morning…
There are so many different aspects of life, various layers of you, me, and us. Football and fantasies. Fighting and friendship. Fun, food, and family. Hurricanes and helpers. Heartache and healing. Hardness, hurriedness, and hopefulness. Wasteful and wonderful. Whining and wondering. Waiting, watching, and “What if?” Individually and collectively, we are a moving mass of living layers.
Our daily prayer begins to become, “LORD, please permeate me so that I might see You at work in my everyday life. Where am I joining You? How am I still resisting?” You, me, and we, we are created to play our part in the living body of Christ, day after day, the resurrected Christ who holds everything together.
We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God’s original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body.
He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he’s there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross.
You yourselves are a case study of what he does. At one time you all had your backs turned to God, thinking rebellious thoughts of him, giving him trouble every chance you got. But now, by giving himself completely at the Cross, actually dying for you, Christ brought you over to God’s side and put your lives together, whole and holy in his presence. You don’t walk away from a gift like that! You stay grounded and steady in that bond of trust, constantly tuned in to the Message, careful not to be distracted or diverted. There is no other Message—just this one. Every creature under heaven gets this same Message (Colossians 1:15-23a, MSG).
Gradually God, layer by layer, melt all of us into all of You. Gracious and giving. Lavish and loving. Fruitful and forgiving. Please sink into us, soaking and saturating. One and all. Earth and heaven. Now and forever. Amen and always, let wholeness grow.
…Sue…
