End your divorce!
AM Psalm 78:1-39 • PM Psalm 78:40-72
2 Kings 5:19-27 • 1 Cor. 5:1-8 • Matt. 5:27-37
I have to admit—today's passages on adultery, immorality, and divorce were not exactly what I had hoped to pull for my inaugural Morning Reflection. Indeed, I chuckle as I think of priests I know who have avoided preaching on these very subjects! But, if we consider “divorce,” this notion of separation, and disconnect, and apply it to our daily lives, it beckons us to stand up, pay attention, and end the division that we sometimes unintentionally initiate between ourselves and God.
Many of us love our work, our church, our families, not to mention those many sundry things that we love to do. But sometimes in the midst of these multifarious things we forget about God; we separate ourselves from our conscience knowledge of God’s love for us. We are divorced.
The good news is that God never leaves us, never stands apart from us, but is always present. God’s love is eternal.
In our church library hangs an amazing picture. Jesus is standing at a door, knocking. Observe the door; there is no handle. Notice what surrounds it—thorns, twigs, darkness—our daily indulgences. But Jesus remains there, knocking, waiting for us to open the door and invite Him into our soul and being. God longs for us to open ourselves to God’s embrace, to end the separation that keeps us from the knowledge of God’s divine presence deep within each and every one of us. God will never yield.
There is nothing wrong with loving our passions. But in the midst of these things we embrace day in and day out, we can love them even more with the conscience knowledge of God’s enduring presence by our side.
Written by Linda C. Jones
Linda has been an active member of St. Paul’s since 2000. Currently she serves as Associate Verger, Chorister, Lay Reader, and Spatuala gal. A renaissance woman in many ways she loves her cats, Rudy and Cuthbert, tennis, learning the banjo, playing the bagpipes, being in the great outdoors. In her spare time, she is an Associate Professor of World Languages at the U of A.