By Don Schatz

Soul Ablaze

You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking on this SoundCloud link.

“I rise before dawn and cry for help.  I wait for your words.”

Psalm 119:147 New American Standard Version

I walk the waterfront in the morning.  This time of year, it is still before sunrise.  It is a time to enter the solitary place in the soul reserved for meeting the Lord.  Christian solitude is not lonely.  Because, ironic as it may seem, we are not alone in solitude.  The Lord meets us there.  The Word of the Lord sustains us there.  The Spirit of the Lord breathes out deeply upon us: “My peace I give to you.”

I may not always cry for help.  Sometimes I do.  Love for the Word of God is key.  We wait for the words of God’s Word to massage away the tears, the aches and pains with which First World life can visit us.  We trust and believe.  We entrust and surrender.  We cry and we laugh.  We quiet the soul.  God speaks.  He reminds us that he calls us into the dawn of a new day.  He brings to mind the Word and its promises.

“I am with you always.”

“I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.”

“Come to me all who are weary and heavy-burdened, and I will give you rest.”

“If you take the wings of the dawn to the remotest parts of the sea, even there my hand will lead you.”

You do not have to be one who rises before the dawn.  The Morning Star that is Jesus is always rising on the wings of the dawn in your soul.  His grace rests upon you.  The morning call of gulls, robins, chickadees, sparrows–they sing in your heart.

Greet the Lord today.  Sing to the dawn.  Sing with the dawn.  Sing in the Light that is Christ, calling to you and filling you with the illuminating love of God.  If none of this has ever dawned on you, well there is no day like today.

Copyright Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado