I put this quote on the first slide of a discernment retreat I led a week ago. It seemed appropriate to remind everyone there (and myself as well) that all we need we already have… it’s planted right inside of us.
In order to unmask what we seek, we need time and space. We need rest and recovery. And sometimes we need to put aside the desperate search and come back to it later with new eyes.
I put off preparing for that retreat until the week of… I had so many other things going on that I kept having to cross out “prepare for retreat” on my daily to-do list and push it onto the next day and the next one after that.
I started to worry that I wouldn’t be able to put the retreat together after all. I was worried I would remain blank on how to begin as my mind was swept up by so much else. But then as I was sharing this thought aloud with a close friend, he said: “You already have what you need.”
And it was true. I had been gathering bits and pieces of discernment information for over fifteen years. I had written dozens of articles on the topic. I had even written some poetry during my more challenging discernment moments. I had everything I sought already if I trusted myself to deliver and the Holy Spirit to show up.
And boy did the Holy Spirit show up last Saturday morning… and the feeling of God’s presence in the conversations and reflections that day will live on in me for awhile.
So as we start this last push today towards the holidays, may we remember that we already have what we seek…
… and it will make itself known to us, if we make time and space for the One who holds the key.
