Moving houses, business, or family units is hard work! As an itinerant pastor, our family moved numerous times during the course of my church appointive years. The gift of those moves was experiencing faith and life with many diverse people. Yet, the hard work of moving always remained. There was sorting, packing, delivery of items, unpacking, cancelling and setting up utilities, and discerning how to decorate our new digs. Choices had to be made. As hard as physically moving a community of people from one location to another is, it is often harder to make internal moves.
Henri Nouwen wrote in his book The Inner Voice of Love about how very difficult it is to move from the house of fear to the house of love. “Every time you experience the pain of rejection, absence, or death, you are faced with a choice. You can become bitter and decide not to love again, or you can stand straight in your pain and let the soil on which you stand become richer and more able to give life to new seeds.”[1] The choice is ours this day as it is in every circumstance of each day. How will you choose?
The Scripture
The Israelites had done it again. Their behavior influenced their current reality of being exiled from the promised land. Can you image, after Moses led them out of captivity in Egypt, they wandered the desert for 40 years and then finally entered the promised land. Yet, here they were years later exiled from the promised land. Check out Deuteronomy 30:15-20. This passage of Scripture is Moses’ final words as he addressed the people. To a demoralized, confused, apathetic people who sought hope in a situation that seemed hopeless, Moses appealed to them to reawaken in their faith. He encouraged them to have courage and trust. Moses urged Israel to accept its past failures in relating to God and others. While at the same time Moses called them to recognize without God, truly they were in a hopeless position.
A new beginning, individually and culturally was possible if the people chose life. If they chose to be formed deeply within their being to become even more like God’s love; that is obey, follow, and lean into the character of God, their lives would be renewed by God. The community of Israelites, like our modern-day society has been given a choice. Will the people at large chose to live as God loves?
Today’s Prayer Practice
We pause this day to consider what moving boxes we need to fill and remove from our heart house to love even more consistently and profoundly with God’s love in and through all of our life circumstance and relationships? Love of God, our faith foundation for life impacts all of our relationships with others, God, and even how we perceive our self.
Today you are invited to prayerfully fill whatever moving boxes you have with any fears, doubts, anger, jealousy, bitterness, or any other negativity within your being that keeps you trapped in the house of fear. As you write on the boxes, name specifically what fears, doubts, angers, or feelings you could handover to God so you can be formed even more nearly into the image of Christ’s love. Consider what you could release to God to move out of your heart house so that you can live even greater stability of God’s love as you move deeper into God’s house of love
A picture of moving boxes can be found here for your contemplation and prayer. When you are finished filling the boxes with feelings, thoughts, mannerism, habits, or behaviors that you would like God to move out of your heart house, offer your filled boxes to God. Celebrate new freedom as your heart is lifted from the weighty boxes of negativity, hurts, or habits.
Today celebrate the freedom God gifts you with as you seek to live completely in God’s house of love.
Enjoy praying.
[1] Henri Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love. New York: DoubleDay. Page 59.
