Sunday, June 01, 2008

EVERY DOOR FLEW OPEN

June 1, 2008

Along about midnight, Paul and Silas were at prayer and singing a robust hymn to God. The other prisoners couldn't believe their ears. Then, without warning, a huge earthquake! The jailhouse tottered, every door flew open, all the prisoners were loose.

-- Acts 16: 25-26 (in The Message, a paraphrase by Eugene Peterson)


Today every door has flown open. Actually, none of them were ever closed, but I didn’t realize it. Like many of us, I thought I was a prisoner inside a material body inside a material universe, threatened on all sides by every imaginable peril. It’s what I grew up believing, and my beliefs have held me prisoner. Today, though, I’m going to behave like a suddenly liberated prisoner, because the universe is far different than I thought it was. A wondrous “earthquake” of thought has destroyed the material restraints. I understand now that I live in a spiritual empire (the “kingdom of God”, as Jesus called it) where the only ruler is the eternal and boundless present moment. There are no doors, no locks, no walls, no separations. All the prisoners -- including me -- are loose.

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