Friday, October 22, 2021https://kuc.org/wp-content/uploads/joy-29.jpg

Katie Snipes Lancaster

Scripture
May you be made strong
with all the strength
that comes from his glorious power,
and may you be prepared to endure
everything with patience,
while joyfully giving thanks.
Colossians 1:11

A Look at Joy
You who read these words already know this inner Life and Light. For by this Light within you, is your recognition given. In this humanistic age we suppose the human is the initiator and God is the responder. But the Living Christ within us is the initiator and we are the responders.

God the Lover, the accuser, the revealer of light and darkness presses within us. “Behold I stand at the door and knock.” And all our apparent initiative is already a response, a testimonial to Christ’s secret presence and working within us. The basic response of the soul to the Light is internal adoration and joy, thanksgiving and worship, self-surrender and listening. The secret places of the heart cease to be our noisy workshop.

They become a holy sanctuary of adoration and of self-oblation, where we are kept in perfect peace, if our minds be stayed on Christ who has found us in the inward spring of our life.

(Thomas R. Kelly, A Testament of Devotion Harper San Francisco: 1992, ©1941).

Prayer
O God of Love,
Reveal in us your light,
Cease the noise,
And open us up anew.
Amen.