Ask for life and you will receive it...abundantly.

Fourth of July in Henrietta NY

"If you then, who are wicked,know how to give good gifts to your children,how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spiritto those who ask him?”  Luke 11:13

 Today's readings are all about the Holy Spirit.  Paul admonishes the Galatians who seem to have begun in faith but have subsequently fallen back into reliance on their own efforts to live according to the Law.  He is insistent that it is by faith and not our works that we are saved.  All our efforts to live according to the mandates of the Law simply re-enforce our life in the flesh and prevent us from deeply living into the life of the spirit which is the life of the Divine One.

Luke recounts the familiar story of a man who eventually gets bread from a neighbor late at night by simply being persistent and then ends with the lines above.  If we ask, we will receive.  If we seek, we will find.  However what we ask for and what we seek is the key.  These final lines make clear that the Divine One will always give us the spirit of divine life, the life of the Trinity if we simply ask for it, if we just seek it.  As long as we are caught up in our own works and living righteously according to the Law, we are simply living a life that cannot access this eternal life.  We are trapped in the flesh, in the only life we think we have.

Each of us in some way becomes aware of that option.  This is always presented within the context of our own culture and tradition and thus is not uniform.  Our faith, however, tells us that the Divine One desires each of us to live that divine life.  When we encounter that option, all we have to do is desire it, ask for it.  We know that the Divine One will give it to us because it is and always has been deep within us waiting for us to recognize it and accept it.  Once that happens it is able to more powerfully inhabit our lives and how we live in the world.  If we become confused and try to substitute our own efforts, the light dims and becomes less potent for us.

If we focus on that core reality, our life begins to express the Divine One just as fruit appears in an orchard, naturally and in its time.