When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.
Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen. Ephesians 3:14-21 (NLT)
For Reflection:
This passage is beautiful. Each phrase full of hope - unlimited resources, strength, power, love, trust, understanding, fullness, infinite, glory, The trinity - God, Spirit, Christ - dwelling in and among us. What phrase stands out to you?
It seems we have almost no other need to search for hope if we could just sit right here. But then, real life is just so complicated, we need something more than nice sounding words. Take a quiet moment to let these verses soak into your being.
Let’s now take our moment of scripture meditation with us into our day. Unlimited resources guiding us through our workdays. Christ, who came and was human alongside us, here with us as we cry and as we laugh. Roots, grounded in God’s love, entangling every part of us, nourishing us as the chaos of life swirls around us. An understanding of a love too big to grasp intersecting every interaction we have with every other person we see.
As we dwell on this vast love throughout our days, the space of holy reflection collides with the very physical, material world that is in front of us right now. As we build this habit in our lives, can we expect to rise above all circumstances in a spiritual realm of bliss, or maybe have everything in our life just start to work itself out, or to breezily glide through life’s problems without a care? Sounds nice, but in reality we are still here suffering, and enjoying, and crying and laughing and living this complicated life - just like Jesus did.
Yet in the slow, unanxious work of God, rooting our hope in unlimited resources and inner strength from the Spirit may lead to more generosity and less power grabbing. Rooting our hope in a promise of completeness may lend itself to more humility and less defensive worry. Rooting our hope in immeasurable love may bring more kindness and less fearful selfishness. With these roots can we embrace the unlimited resources of strength, life, power, and love that is prayed for here? With these roots maybe each everyday action that is transformed by God’s love will accomplish infinitely more than we can even ask or think. Anchored and rooted in hope of the completeness of his love both here and now and in what is to come.
Let us pray:
Dear God,
I don’t want to live in a faith of placations and simplified phrases. I don’t want a spirituality that has to escape from real life. You in your immense love and power met us here in Jesus; you know what it is like. And you give us your unlimited resources, your ever-present love, your glory to root our hope in right here in our present circumstance. I thank you for your love and pray that we will meditate on your promises of love until we are drenched in it, rooted so deep that it changes us and changes the world into your completeness in ways we can’t even yet imagine. Thank you for your presence here in and through us and your faithful, never-ending, immense love. Amen.
I wonder what incredible phrase in this passage catches my attention the most.
I wonder what habits I have or could create to root into God’s love.
I wonder what it would feel like to anchor in the hope of God’s “glorious, unlimited resources” and immeasurable love.