What has been the cry of your heart for as long as you can remember?
It is in the quiet of the day that we are reminded of such. In the hustle and the bustle we cannot find the screaming whispers of our hearts. But in the quiet…
Perhaps that is why we (as a society at large) are afraid of silence.
For the longings and the passions cannot be ignored in the silence; we are brought face to face with ourselves. It’s not always an easy thing.
For what if ‘yourself’ wanted to feed the orphans in Romania?
What if ‘yourself’ longed to teach English in China?
If ‘yourself’ dreamed of traveling indigenous villages of Africa…
What would then be required of you? How do we respond to ‘ourselves’?
Any of these things (and all the myriad of options) require that we organize our life around these very same things. They demand no less.
And whether it is social justice kind of work or whether it is exploring the stars and the cosmos like you’ve always wanted, perhaps inventing a new shoe that increases circulation and well-being even while we walk, maybe its…
You fill in the blank.
It doesn’t matter what it is, for what it is for you and me is so incredibly unique that we dare not compare ourselves; whatever it is, do it because it is a part of you.
Life, real living, demands that we take notice and give voice to the deepest longings of our beings; your job for you, my job for me, each job for each.
And whether it is moving across town, across the continent, across nations, or whether it is changing jobs, the willingness to orient our lives around this hard inner pull marks the satisfied.
The dreams and desires and whispers of longing that come out in the silent moments, they deserve to be listened to.
Learn to honor yourself, the deepest core of you. It will surely change your life in some way. And this is exactly the starting place. If you can make changes in your life for you, then you can make changes in your life for others.
If you can respond to your own hearts longings, you can respond to the heart longings of others.
We have all been charged with the mandate to have dominion over our lives. To choose and to act and to express, to articulate by word and deed, the beauty placed deep within.
The key to the will of God in our lives, is found in the silent places. The longing, the dream, the whispered desires…
Those things, those things, are the will of God for you. Those things we are given by God’s own hand and heart. And it is now your turn to take hold of them, to take hold of yourself, and give breath to the seeds of life and of purpose that are within.
They are already there. We needn’t go looking anywhere. We must simply look inside… and get r-e-a-l quiet.
Like waiting on wildlife in the forest, dreams and visions and longings are as skittish as wild rabbits.
To get to know them, we must be quiet.
How might you build some quiet into your life today?