Out of The Wilderness by Donna Brayton

2008-05-05T23:06:00.000-07:00

I am under vows to you, O God, I will present my thank offering to you. For you have delivered me from death and my feet from stumbling, that I might walk before God in the light of life.

- Psalm 56: 12 & 13:

That is how we feel this day Father. We present our thank offerings to you. You have delivered our feet from stumbling that we might walk before you in the light of our lives. Oh how we praise you! Oh how we praise you! You are so beyond what we can understand. We feel as if all day we should walk upon our knees to be in such a presence of the maker of heaven and earth.

Our Father speaks:

My children, I love you so. All the days of your life, I have called you to obedience but only recently you have begun to understand what I have meant. Listen my children, listen to my voice, stamp out the other voices. You are mine! Listen to no other. I need your ear. I need your heart and I need your will to do as I have asked. What did Paul’s letter to the Corinthians have to say to you?

Paul said that the Corinthians were under great pressure far beyond their ability to endure. But this happened that they would not rely on themselves, but on God who raises the dead and in Him they set their hope that he will continue to deliver them.

Our Father speaks:

That is the answer for all my children. How slow you are to understand but only when you find yourself in a situation under great pressure, far beyond your ability to endure, then you see my deliverance and it builds your faith of me. You understand a bit more about obedience.

How often we say to you and to others, “Our ‘old man’ is just a breath away.” In living our ordinary lives, the “old man” within takes over and leaves you in the dust of our busyness in order to solve a problem. You as a perfect Father allow us to do just that, until we fall once again and look to you. Why could this not be done once and for all, that we might go about doing your work without this sin against you?

Our Father speaks again:

Then you really would forget me!

We pray on our knees the words of the old hymn by Bernard of Clairvaus, in the year 1153 A.D.:

O Sacred Head Now Wounded
What thou my Lord hast suffered, was all for sinners gain.
Mine, mine was the transgression, but thine the deadly pain.
Lo here I fall my Savior! Tis I deserve thy place;
Look on me with thy favor, vouchsafe to me thy grace.

What language shall I borrow to thank Thee, dearest friend,
For this Thy dying sorrow, Thy pity without end?
O make me thine forever, and should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never, never outlive my love to Thee.

AMEN!

(Donna Brayton is Director of Spiritual Direction, Christian Healing Center , Oceanside , California, and Director of Small Group/Covenant Group Ministry, St. Anne's Anglican Church, Oceanside, California)

Western Anglicans

Out of The Wilderness by Donna Brayton