“Apart from me you can do nothing.”
John 15:5b
Apart from You, Jesus, I am uncreated wilderness, formless and empty, dark.
On the brink of creation, on the eve of Your inbreaking, in this Advent season of held-breath waiting, we invite Your Word to speak to us in our poverty and our need. Speak us out of our false selves, our penchant for pride and self-deceit. Speak us into new birth.
The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said. He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”
“Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.”
And her daughter was healed at that moment.
Matthew 15:25-28
Your truth is offensive. Your light glares on illusions and card houses and smoke and mirrors without discrimination, disclosing all cracked maneuvering and brittle posturing, casting Your Otherness in sharp relief. I would, in my flesh, turn away to tend my little empire of sand castles. Yet. Reality is found in You (Colossians 2:17). Agreeing with Your assessment is the heart of intercession, through which we co-create with You ourselves and the Kingdom. Agreeing with You releases what is already true but not yet manifested. Agreeing with You releases power.
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
2 Corinthians 12:9, emphasis mine
Therefore, Lord, like the woman, I agree I am a dog. Yes Lord, I am weak. No, Lord, I did not create the atoms and carbon and nitrogen that compose my dusty frame. No, Lord, nor did I conceive of such a thing as water, of the vastness of oceans, of the geometry of snow, of the bulk and heft that fill this vessel and grant it supple motion. Nor did I wire the pulse and rhythm and slosh of our electric heartbeats.
I did not have a productive day at work: it was You. I was not kind to the dog, I did not craft a beautiful sentence, I cannot save or sustain or sanctify myself. It is Your Spirit in me inspiring goodness and gentleness. The purity of my intentions will be alloyed a little while longer, Lord. My works are straw. I need you. Yet. You know it and You do not disdain me for it. You know I need to remain in the Vine. With abundant grace, You have elected to move about this in-between era in the confines of people wrestling with their false selves; Your whole Body is comprised of such people. And so we steadily insist with You on dying daily, that more of You would live, that the mixed results in ourselves and the record of the Church will find their conclusion in the perfection of Your coming Kingdom.
So may the dove You send out over the chaotic waters of this, Your child, find in her weakness a resting place lowly enough for You, for You insist on being born in mangers.
Amen.
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
Hebrews 4:15-16
Fire and Whisper 
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