Christ My Meditation

John 14:6  Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Lord Jesus,

My mind is filled with thoughts of you.  My meditation is sweet. As I sit in the stillness with you, I sense you near. Who can measure my joy as you approach? As you reveal to my mind the knowledge of yourself, I am overwhelmed. I sense your desire to know me and I thank you for placing in my heart a desire to know you.

I confess that my flesh is against you; this is my shame. Without realising it, I have looked for you in all the wrong places. My flesh desires your glory, power, honour and strength but despises your vulnerablity, weakness and shame. I begin to see that if I am to truly know you, I must accept all of you as you reveal yourself. If I reject part of you, I reject all of you.

This is a solemn thought. I slow my steps and consider the path I am treading. Am I walking towards you or away from you? I begin to sense that many times you have knocked at my door and I have not known you; like Peter I have cried, "I know not the man!" It is so hard for my flesh to understand your ascent to Calvary, how you willingly walk in shame and nakedness as an object of disgust. Why do you ask me to follow you through this valley Lord? I sense your smile and the words "Come and see." I begin to see that in this path I will learn more about who you really are. So I will follow you, for I want to know you.

Lord, you are the truth about everything, the centre and circumference, the beginning and the end both in the circle and the line encompassing both space and time, you are all in all. My mind clearly sees your power, strength and majesty - this is something to which I gravitate, but as I look upon you in the manger in the swaddling cloth beside the cows, sheep and chickens, I ponder your weakness, vulnerability and softness. I behold your innocent, sweet resting face and I wonder - how can you be here! How can the men of the world find you here? Why are you not in the palace with marble floors and sweet incense! But all I smell is fresh straw and manure. Lord, it is most offensive to my flesh! Must I worship you in this humility? The men of power will not find you here, their minds will not understand.

Lord, how do strength and weakness find their centre in you. Yet again power and vulnerability, firmness and tenderness, justice and mercy. How can you be all these things at once? My heart struggles to allow my God to be vulnerable and I say with Peter, Lord you will never wash my feet! This is a job for servants and lowly men, but not for my God! Why do you embarrass me like this? There are so many paradoxes in you and I feel the tension between my flesh and your Spirit. You wish to be born in me, and I struggle to understand and allow you entrance.

How are you eternal and begotten? This paradox eluded me for years! You are my comforter and yet you send another - how can this be? It is so tempting to try and resolve the tension too quickly because of the pain and abort the process. No wonder our world is full of abortion, a fitting symbol of what happens to you every day, crucified afresh. How men hate the babe in the manger!

How are you master of all yet servant of all? You are the mighty warrior Michael, yet the hen that gathers me under your motherly wing! My flesh wants to resist this, it steps back in fear, fear of Martha - what would my sister think if she knew I thought such things!!! Is it such a crime Lord, will it become punishable by death to seek for all of you?

I will walk with you Lord in the valley, your rod and staff they comfort me. I count all things but dung (maybe the dung beside the manger!) save for the excellency of the knowledge of you. It comforts me to know you are truly vulnerable and soft. You understand strength in weakness, you know what it is because you are the truth about everything. You do not just know the truth, You ARE the truth. I feel dizzy just thinking about it. How amazing you are. The powerful men of this world will never ever find you here. They despise your weakness and shame, they want nothing of it.

Thank you Father that you have hidden your Son from the wisdom of men.  Rarely do you walk the halls of academia where the blind lead the blind running from the smell of the straw and manure! They despise you Lord, I know for I have walked in these dark sarcastic halls of arrogance and conceit.  I never found you there Lord, it was a house of death and desolation, a desert road without water for my soul.

But I turn my heart towards you and I wait, wait for you to be formed in me. You have searched for me all my life and I have run from you not knowing who you were. I did not want your vulnerability, weakness and shame, only your power; but now the light dawns and I start to see the beginning of wisdom and the fear of the Lord.