Inner Sanctuary by Richard Boatman
1 Corinthians 6:19 – Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?
One of the great truths of Christianity is that the Temple of God is now located in Christ’s followers. It is a reality often overlooked or ignored. A superficial and distracted age is ill prepared to plummet the depths of such a revelation. But on occasions when the light stirs the soul from its slumber, the spiritual insight that we are the sanctuary of the Spirit captivates our focus. What is any richer than the Creator choosing to dwell within us?
As Quaker author Thomas Kelly intones, “Deep within us all there is an amazing inner sanctuary of the soul, a holy place, a Divine Center, a speaking voice, to which we may continuously return. Eternity is at our hearts, pressing upon our time-torn lives, warming us with intimations of an astounding destiny, calling us home unto itself.”
Once we perceive the treasure of Shekinah deep within us, it behooves us, like priests of our inner tabernacle, to daily move inward with intentionality and reverence, gazing upon the One who inhabits our being. We do so, flawed as our attempts at abiding may be, with the tools of God awareness, attentiveness and alignment. We join the seventeenth century French monk Brother Lawrence in cultivating The Practice of the Presence of God.
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