January 8th, 2014 Henri Nouwen's Daily Meditation ||Commentary by Nicole Collins

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Daily-Meditation--Enough-Light-for-the-Next-Step.html?soid=1011221485028&aid=oqXoyEXswh8

In Case the link above to Henri Nouwen’s Daily Meditation doesn’t work—

Wednesday January 8, 2014
Enough Light for the Next Step

Often we want to be able to see into the future. We say, "How will next year be for me? Where will I be five or ten years from now?" There are no answers to these questions. Mostly we have just enough light to see the next step: what we have to do in the coming hour or the following day. The art of living is to enjoy what we can see and not complain about what remains in the dark. When we are able to take the next step with the trust that we will have enough light for the step that follows, we can walk through life with joy and be surprised at how far we go. Let's rejoice in the little light we carry and not ask for the great beam that would take all shadows away.

My Commentary:

Walking with lighted steps is the challenge of the Christian journey.  Perhaps it wouldn’t be a blessing to see into the future.  For what if we see something unavoidable?  Something we have to face and deal with is a part of the tension of seeking to live in the middle of our given reality of being both saint and sinner.

The second half of Nouwen’s meditation says that the art of living is to enjoy what we can see and not complain about what remains in the dark.  The art of living in terms of the Gospel is one lived into GRACE as being clothed in a new kind of righteousness as St. Paul says: (2 Corinthians 5:16-20 ) “¹⁶From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. ¹⁷So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! ¹⁸All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; ¹⁹that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. ²⁰So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”

St. Paul’s snippet from his second letter to the Corinthians examples, how being reconciled to God, allows us to be spiritually illumined on our daily journeys...  Knowing who we are as well as whose we are helps us to live every moment of our lives with a new kind of peace which fruit is joy.

God Bless Your Wednesdays!

Nicole Collins