Upper Room

Today’s Reflection

SWAMI DESCRIBED the modern-day Hindu guru as God’s grace — not a ploy for men and women to be worshiped and elevated above others. God cares for us enough to bestow mercy on us by showing us how best to serve. Grace has been bestowed on someone who is more advanced and who can now show us the way,” Swami explained. “We shouldn’t envy someone whom we perceive to be more advanced at living like Christ than we are. Instead, we should feel joy that God cares enough to send that person to show us what to do.”

I hadn’t thought about God appointing gurus to help us figure out this mess of a life. But that is exactly what Jesus was: the ultimate guru and the ultimate grace. And that’s precisely what the hometown gurus I’d known — the dear followers of Jesus — had done for me.

A real guru, like Christ, will always point to God. The saints I’d known in my childhood and adolescence embodied God’s grace — and accurately represented God by that grace.

– J. Dana Trent
Saffron Cross