Called by Name

You know that you are being called. Your soul is unsatisfied, starving for purpose. Some part of you knows—feels a pull beyond reason deep within the core of your being—that God is calling you by name. And you realize that you must have an intimate relationship with God above all else.…You finally recognize that you need to experience God—and you need to experience your divinity, your route to God. Caroline Myss Entering the Castle Page 78

You may have a job that fully satisfies you; you may have worked in the same field in which you are working now for many years; you may have presumed that this is your calling, your vocation. Gradually, however, you become restless, dissatisfied, and starved of purpose.

Perhaps you have had this feeling before and know what it means; you may not have experienced this feeling before and think, perhaps, that it indicates a yearning for a new job, a new town, or a desire for new learning.

Quiet Morning on the River in Fall

This “pull beyond reason deep within the core of your being, is God calling you by name”. God wants a relationship with you, desires to be a part of you life, and God awaits a response from you. God is not satisfied with a one sided relationship—yes, God loves you and desires to be with you—but, more than that God wants a mutual relationship with you, a two sided relationship, a give and take; God desires that you want to be with the Sacred One as much as the Sacred One wants to be with you.

Begin to take a few moments each morning to be in God’s presence and see where it leads you; take time to be quiet with God; take time to experience your divinity and find your route to God. Your route to God and relationship with God will be unique to you. Search deep in the centre of your being and find your new life.

© Judith Lawrence

A Holy Tryst

Evelyn Underhill says, in her book, Mysticism, The true end of [mystical prayer], like the true end of that mystical life within which it flowers, is the supreme meeting between Lover and Beloved, between God and the soul.…It means, during the hours of introversion, a retreat from and refusal of the Many, in order that the mind may be able to apprehend the One. P. 207/208

It takes much practice and patience in prayer before one experiences a few moments of union with the Sacred One. The practice and patience of this quiet waiting upon God is the “mystical life within which it flowers”.

It is a meeting with God in quiet, restful silence, day after day, in expectant waiting upon God with loving anticipation of a tryst with the Holy One.

Faithfully, the contemplative must come each day to be with God, holding herself still within her centre where God would dwell within her soul.

Joyfully she must prepare herself to be ready to receive the Sacred One who desires to live within her soul eternally, bringing her to spiritual maturity and holiness.

[The soul’s] method is the method of the mystic life, transcendence: a gradual elimination of sensible image, and bit by bit approximation of the contemplative self to reality, gradually producing within it those conditions in which union can take place. (Evelyn Underhill, Mysticism. Page 208)

© Judith Lawrence

This was first published in meditations on www.judithlawrence.ca