Single-Mindedness

Paul admonishes Christians in 2 Corinthians 11:2-3:

"I feel a divine jealousy for you, for I promised you in marriage to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But am am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by its cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ."

Our relationship to God through Jesus Christ is like a "chaste virgin" or a "bride" promising to be faithful to God through Jesus Christ alone. But there are many beckoning voices summoning all of us to turn after tantalizing possibilities in life, which seem to be very promising, but turn us away from God.

This prayer of Walter Brueggemann articulates our needs for God:

You in your harshness, dismissing,
judging,
condemning
devising evil. . .
You in your mercy, seeking,
willing,
hoping,
wishing,
reaching,
weeping.
You in your harshness and in your mercy,
You puzzle us,
You bewilder us,
You keep us off balance,
You are you are . . . perhaps because of our fickleness,
drive you to extremes,
press you to craziness,
impel you against your better self.
We in our fickleness, waywardness, hard-heartedness,
we imagine we are in response,
but we may be at the outset setting you into vertigo.
We in our empty failure . . . you in bewilderment,
we waiting for your better self . . . you here and there,
past vertigo,
back in balance, calling and waiting,
softly and tenderly,
wishing us home with you.
We yearning to hear your call, afraid to hear,
because it means return through the mists of harshness,
through the risk of mercy,
in a journey we fear and crave,
want and dread,
pledge and renege,
start and hesitate, in all our double-mindedness.
So reach us with your single-mindedness,
give us new, single hearts of flesh
that pulse with praise and trust and obedience,
with all our heart,
with all our mind,
with all our strength, toward you, then our true selves.
We pray in the single-minded name of Jesus. Amen.

With all the voices around us constantly, daily, powerfully, may we lift our eyes to the Creator and Sustainer of life itself.

Abundant Blessings Today and Forever

John Willis