Drawn to God

To say that God is Infinite is to say that He may be apprehended and described in an infinity of ways. The Circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere, may be approached from every angle with a certainty of being found.

So says, Evelyn Underhill in her book, Mysticism, P. 163

Draw me, we will run after thee. Song of Solomon 1:4a (King James’ Version)

God draws us to himself, even when we are only just beginning on the path of mystical prayer. God desires us to know him and, because each one of us is different, we can “run after God” in our own unique way and unite with God in our own unique union with the Sacred One.

The circle and circumference of God’s being is vast, in fact, it is infinite; the centre of God’s circle is where God desires each one of us to be—it is our spiritual home.

We do not have to be all the same. God does not require us, nor even want us, to be the same as one another. God delights in diverse responses and relationships with his creatures. As no two woodpeckers have exactly the same red markings on the back of their heads, and no two snowflakes have exactly the same pattern as any other snowflake, so it is with spiritual/human beings—no two have exactly the same makeup or the same relationship with God. Each one of us is created by God to be unique and therefore each one’s bond with the Sacred One is delightfully different and special from any other.

Perhaps even God would get bored with his creation if we were carbon copies of one another.

© Judith Lawrence

Glimpsing God

In your time of meditation and quiet with the Sacred One, you glimpse God and receive God’s love and light. As a relationship with your special partner grows by being with that special person, talking to that special person, spending time quietly with that one special one, so does your relationship with God grow by making time to be with the Lord. In so doing, you grow in the Spirit; your soul expands and has more room for God’s love. Judith Lawrence, Highway of Holiness: Soul Journey Page 6

Have you taken that step yet, that step to being with God each day if only for a very short time?

Why not give it a try this week. Come to God early in the morning. Be silent in God’s presence. Look to God and be amazed. Even five minutes of complete silence with God in the morning quiet will bring you a peace that you didn’t think possible.

I pray that your time with God will grow and be blessed; your heart and soul expand in God’s grace.

© Judith Lawrence

In the Morning Silence

It is in the silence that you come to be aware of God’s purpose in everything you experience; it is in the morning silence that you come to grow in spiritual maturity and in gratitude for God’s love and the Lord’s indwelling; and it is in the morning silence that you respond in love to God, grow in love to God, and begin to experience a mutual love between God and your soul. Judith Lawrence, Highway ofHoliness: Soul Journey Page 5.

What a precious gift is the morning silence. This time of morning stillness is not always easy to come by. Some can only find it by searching diligently for it. It may be that some will only find a morning time of quiet by altering their schedule—by getting up before the activity of the whole household begins.

I live in a rural area and early mornings are quiet and peaceful with very little traffic noise and only the sweet sound of birds to enhance the silence with their special morning praise songs.

However, even in urban areas there is a lull of street sounds in the time before dawn. I discovered this when I worked on night duty as a registered nurse—around four in the morning, the cars would stop their continuous roar, the buses would have finished their night runs and not yet begun their morning schedule.

This would be the moment that time stood still, and quiet peace hung in the air, before the rush and tumble of activity revved up again.

If you can bring yourself to rise from the warmth and comfort of your bed this early in the morning, you will discover the morning silence wherein you will find God and begin to experience the mutual love between God and your soul.

Modern Day Spiritual Pilgrim

We are all pilgrims on life’s road. What is the modern day pilgrim seeking? What are you seeking? What is God seeking from us? God desires that we come to know the Lord’s love for us and that we understand that God’s love is within us; we are to love God and ourselves, and to share God’s love with others. Judith Lawrence, Highway of Holiness: Soul Journey Page 2

Many modern day pilgrims, I think, are lacking peace and quiet in their lives. Therefore, I think that this is what we are seeking. In today’s world, even though we have so many things that can assist us in our daily lives—washing machines, microwaves, technologies that assist us in easing our burden—yet there seems to be less peace within.

Perhaps it is because of all the machines and toys that we possess that we find ourselves spending more time doing and less time looking and being quiet. We rush from one thing to another in order to do them all before the day passes—our e-mails, our Facebook page, our apps, and our TV programs to name a few.

We have no time to pause and see nature, to stop and think of God, to just be in God’s presence and love. This rushing about makes for an internal restlessness and turbulence; we can no longer be at peace or be with God.

We may want all these things but that is not what we need. What we need is to know God’s love and peace, we need to be quiet and at rest. Even if we spend an hour each day being quiet with God, with nature, with a domestic animal we will begin to find an inner peace and tranquility; we will, in fact, find God.

Journeying to a Sacred Place

A pilgrim is one who journeys to a sacred place of a future life. Those of us who are set on this journeying process are joyful. Judith Lawrence, Highway of Holiness: Soul Journey, Page 2

Do you find yourself joyful as you walk your daily pilgrimage? If you are aware that you are a pilgrim journeying to a sacred place or to a future life, you should find yourself in a joyful state. No matter if your life is difficult, if you know that you are journeying toward spiritual maturity you will be joyful.

We are walking toward a future life, one that is eternal—a life totally lived with God. This is a sacred place, a holy place, a place where God is ever at the centre of our lives. There are so many things we have to do that it is easy to neglect the time apart from the world, the time to be wholly with God, not just partly but totally.

The time to go into the special place, to close the door, shut out the world, the telephone, the Blackberry, the internet—we must unplug, for a time, all the things that would pull us away from the one thing that is necessary, the chosen part of the Spirit.

We like to be seen to be busy. This makes us look good in other people’s eyes. They see that we are busy, filling our moments with good works and good deeds. To be seen sitting quietly makes us look bad in other’s eyes; we look lazy, we have nothing tangible to show for our quiet work, and no way to explain that our quiet time with God is a spiritual endeavour, a growth in relationship with our Creator, a time of healing of the world.

The peace that grows in these times apart with God, not only increases the peace within us but the peace around us, so that others may receive God’s healing peace.