Dear Ones,
Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee. —Augustine of Hippo
These beautiful words, written 1,600 years ago by St. Augustine, illuminate my heart this morning. In this simple but profound statement, we see both the mystery and the movement in our journey home, back to the heart of our Creator.
How do we, as the beloved of God, in the midst of the fragmentation and restlessness of our competitive world, find our rest? How do we move from competition to compassion, from noise to silence, from constant motion to stillness, from materialism to simplicity? Discipline is the way. Discipline is simply the human effort to allow a little space in our lives for God—not to achieve anything—but rather to discover God ever-present within us, offer as much of ourselves as we can, and set spiritual boundaries within which we can receive something from God. It is discipline that makes discipleship possible.
I would remind you that the question is not how we are going to find God, but how are we going to allow ourselves to be found by God? To be found, we must allow space in our lives where God can speak to us and we can hear. I sometimes feel that we experience distractions and dryness in prayer and become weary in our waiting because we fail to remember the ultimate promise: the gift of Himself to us. It is upon this promise that we are always to base our hope. And it is in this hope that we are to be persistent and patient in our waiting. We must prevent all of our time from being filled up by the world, so we may remain open and available to the still small voice of our Shepherd, Whose heart cries out for us and longs to find us and guide us home.
Let us prepare our hearts to receive more and more of the purity and simplicity of Jesus, that in so preparing, our fear and fragmentation might diminish, and the Holy Gift might come in its place. Thus, the divine plan, the transformation of our human nature into the likeness of the One Who is given, might enable us to live our ordinary lives with extraordinary love.
May we allow ourselves to be found by Divine Love; the Love which holds the whole of humanity in a compassionate embrace. ~Betty
With gratitude to Sally Chester for the beautiful image of Betty