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.

Walking our Spiritual Journey

 

It is the soul that walks our spiritual journey; it is the soul that is holy from the time before we were born, it is the soul that remains our core of holiness throughout our life on earth; it is the soul that re-enters heaven in holiness, having matured and expanded through our spiritual pilgrimage. Judith Lawrence, Highway of Holiness: Soul Journey, Pg. xv

The soul is our very being, the being that is our core essence before, during, and after our life on earth. The soul, however, is not loud and obtrusive; and, at first, when we are born, we are hardly aware of its presence even though it is the entity of our being.

We are most aware of our physical body with which we identify ourselves while here on earth along with our mental acuity and ego. These are the parts of our being that we are most aware of and, it may be some time before we recognize our soul and give it its true place and value within.

When we do recognize the soul as our centre then we begin to hear and listen to its voice; we begin to follow the soul’s leading and grow in sanctity; we begin to become more fully who we are meant to be—holy as God is holy.

Crossing the Threshold of Christ

When we go across the threshold and out through the gate, which is Christ, we proceed along our path to holiness, growing in spiritual maturity until we reach the highest sanctity we can achieve on earth. Whether we are on a spiritual back road, foot path, or paved highway, if we are searching for a closer relationship with God, we are on the Highway of Holiness. Judith Lawrence, Highway of Holiness: Soul Journey, Pg. xiv

I have said before, in previous blogs and in my latest book, that we were born in holiness—when we are born we are already holy. That fact doesn’t preclude us from continuing to grow in holiness.

As we go along our daily journey towards spiritual maturity, we go across the threshold of the gate, which is Christ. We go out through the door of Christ each day, walk our spiritual journey as we go along our road of daily work and play, and at the end of the day, come back across the threshold of Christ’s door and, in Christ, examine how our day went.

We thank God for being with us, guiding and guarding us; we recall the things and events for which we are grateful; we remember our transgressions and ask for forgiveness from God; we ask for protection through the coming night and prepare to sleep in Christ’s loving arms and continue on the Highway of Holiness once more when we wake.

Jesus said, Yes, I am the gate. Those who come in through me will be saved. They will come and go freely and will find good pastures. John 10:9 (New Living Translation.)

Pilgrimage of the Soul

A spiritual pilgrimage is ongoing. It is the pilgrimage of the soul and we may not be aware that it is happening at first. From time to time we may get some holy intuition of this pilgrimage and, as we mature, we become more in tune with the soul’s journey. We begin the spiritual pilgrimage in holiness, we walk the highway of holiness, and the goal is holiness. Judith Lawrence,  Highway of Holiness: Soul Journey, Pg. xiv

The moment we are born we immediately and inevitably begin the journey of life. This journey includes our physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual path.

In order to grow physically we need bodily nourishment; to grow intellectually we need to be given food for thought; to grow emotionally we need guidance from our parents, teachers, and caregivers in how to respond to circumstances we meet in life.

To grow spiritually there is no set way for each one of us to follow other than the daily necessity to draw ourselves apart for a time of  prayer, reading of the scriptures and books of spiritual content. Spiritual growth follows a unique path for each of us. Each of us is given an inner guide, our soul, who quietly calls us to follow our special path to the Sacred One.

Perhaps those who are born into a religious household become aware of our spiritual pilgrimage earlier in life than those who are not given any religious upbringing, but each of us will be led along our own unique spiritual journey or path by our soul. Before each of us was born on earth, our soul was already in existence. The soul takes on a physical body for the duration of our time here on earth dispensing with it at the end of our physical existence. Our soul remains at the core of our being and is our internal guide, leading us toward spiritual maturity during our time on earth, and showing us our own special relationship with the Sacred One.

Spiritual Pilgrimage

A spiritual pilgrimage begins with one step. The pilgrimage we are on is one of holiness. The first step is taken in love and faith. The first step we make requires that we step across the threshold from the place where we are now and into the unknown. Judith Lawrence, Highway of Holiness: Soul Journey, Pg. xiii

Stepping across the threshold and beginning a pilgrimage from our old life into the new and unknown can be a little scary. We might want to be on this holy path, we might desire to live a life of holiness, but something may be holding us back.

What is it we are afraid of? Perhaps we are afraid to take that first step towards spiritual maturity because we are afraid that we won’t be able to finish what we started.

The beauty and wonder of life in this world is that every morning we get a new start. We are not expected to complete our spiritual pilgrimage in one day but to keep walking the path, “to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith,” [Heb 12:2] and to steadfastly continue on the journey with Christ by our side. We are at one with Christ; Christ lives in us and we live In Christ; there is no separation from Christ.

This is the journey: the journey has its beginning in God; the journey is God; the end of the journey is God. There is no separation from the Sacred One nor do we want to be separated from the Lord. Each step we take on the Highway of Holiness is a step taken with Christ at our side and we have nothing to fear as long as we keep our eyes on the Lord.