I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you… Ephesians 1:18
Most merciful and mighty Father, if a sheriff should knock at my door to subpoena me to court, that would be a bit unnerving and unsettling. But today, like every day, the gospel is knocking at my door to subpoena me to hope, and that is meant to be the most settling and centering of all summons imaginable.
How I praise you for making hope a calling. You haven’t just extended a general notification or given me a polite invitation. I am called to hope in Jesus… just as surely as you called me to a saving knowledge of his grace and will call me to an eternal celebration of your presence one day. I wouldn’t think of ignoring a summons from the sheriff, I dare not ignore a summons from you… especially one that is meant for so much good.
So, Father, I agree with and make myself a target of Paul’s petition. Open the eyes of my heart right now. Wipe the morning crud from my eyes. Things seem a bit blurry. I’m having a hard time focusing. Help me to see Jesus clearly today… with 20-15 vision.
Free me from fixing my gaze on all the circumstances and all the people that make it easy for me to feel hapless and hopeless. Paul wrote these words of encouragement from a Roman imprisonment, not from a Mediterranean condo. What am I so whipped, whiney and wimpy about? I have real needs, but you give an even greater hope.
So bring enlightenment where there’s been too much dullness and darkness of late… of the other-imposed and self-imposed varieties. Throw the curtains all the way open… turn the rheostat of hope all the way to the right… do laser surgery on the eyes of my heart, if need be. I would see Jesus and it will be enough. So very Amen, I pray, in his tender and triumphant name.