Work remains unsatisfying when we fail to listen to the divine voice within. Most of us go through life thinking, "Surely there is more to it than this!" We all wish we had the answer. We keep hoping that someone will discover the answer and tell us what it is.The current emphasis on all kinds of spirituality represents our deep hunger, our search, our awareness of our spiritual need. Some of the books and TV shows and advice given by all kinds of "experts" are helpful, at least partly. Others would lead us astray and cause us to feel more disappointed, guilty, lonely, and fragmented. But all of these things are evidence that we are searching for a center.
| Why do you spend … your labor for that which does not satisfy? –Isaiah 55:1-2 |
Perhaps you are reading this article because you have had a moving spiritual experience at some time in your life. If this was the case for you, you may have expected the glow and intensity of that experience to continue with you forever.
Or perhaps you do not remember a time when you did not have faith in God. Maybe you were baptized as a baby, brought up in the Christian faith (or another religion) from early childhood, and joined the church after completing a confirmation with other young folks your age. Probably you expected to experience a difference in your life following confirmation and you may have hoped and intended to align your life and your life’s work with that of Jesus Christ.
Or maybe you became interested in spirituality when you started a family or when your children became old enough to ask some deep questions – or maybe your spiritual search began with September 11. You wanted to provide "something spiritual" to give hope to yourself and stability and values to your children.
In any of these cases, you probably have experienced some level of disappointment. The euphoria of your experience or the idealism of your youthful commitment didn’t last. Your church or religious organization either hasn’t provided any answers for your daily living, or you have found those answers less than satisfying.
Most of us go through life thinking, "Surely there is more to it than this!" We all wish we had the answer. We keep hoping that someone will discover the answer and tell us what it is. The current emphasis on all kinds of spirituality represents our deep hunger, our search, our awareness of our spiritual need. Some of the books and TV shows and advice given by all kinds of "experts" are helpful, at least partly. Others would lead us astray and cause us to feel more disappointed, guilty, lonely, and fragmented. But all of these things are evidence that we are searching for a center.
| People say that what we're seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive. -- Joseph Campbell |
Thomas A. Kelly was a Quaker philosophy professor who is best known for a little book of lectures titled A Testament of Devotion, which was published after his death in 1941. In the chapter "The Simplification of Life," he said:
| Life is meant to be lived from a Center, a divine Center.... We have all heard this holy whisper at times.... [But] only at times have we submitted to His holy guidance. We have not counted this Holy Thing within us to be the most precious thing in the world. We have not surrendered all else, to attend to it alone. -- Thomas A. Kelly |
I am sure that you have experienced God’s holy whisper, a divine touch, a sense of divine assurance – or God’s unrelenting, demanding call. But you have not have recognized it and so don’t believe it.
In the Hebrew Bible, Isaiah 55:1-2 asks the question, "Why do you spend … your labor [in other words, your time] for that which does not satisfy?" Simply put, why do you continue to be disappointed and overwhelmed by life instead of listening to the inner voice in delight?
- The reason isn’t usually indifference or a lack of interest.
- The reason isn’t usually unbelief.
- In fact, the reason probably is that somewhere deep inside yourself you believe that following the divine calling would make a difference -- and you don’t know what to expect.
| On Waking UpSpirituality means waking up. Most people, even though they don’t know it, are asleep. They’re born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep, they die in their sleep without ever waking up. They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence…. Waking up is unpleasant, you know. You are nice and comfortable in bed. It is irritating to be woken up. –Anthony de Mello |
We think we know what to expect if we won a million dollars. But we’re not at all sure what to expect if we listen to the quiet inner voice and accept the overwhelming love God offers.
