Have you ever had one of those moments when you felt God come close?
When you felt that it was God’s voice instead of your own speaking clearly and directly right to you?
I have… and those moments… they feel like they are everything.
But like most moments in life, they pass. And life keeps on crashing in and taking over and soon you start to feel like that voice was perhaps just your own (maybe just a bit louder version) after all.
It can be so disheartening to go from a moment of clarity right back into a life of confusion and uncertainty.
It can make you wonder where God went.
The last time this happened to me, however, I realized something…
… a quite difficult something…
about what is supposed to happen in the “after”.
After God comes close, after everything makes sense in a particular moment, after God seemingly calls me into action…
It actually isn’t up to God to take the next step.
It’s up to me.
I read this quote this morning from Ignatius and it struck me anew:
“God’s love calls us to move beyond fear. We ask God for the courage to abandon ourselves unreservedly, so that we might be molded by God’s grace, even as we can not see where that path may lead us.”
The truth is – taking a step, any step is scary. I get scared that I will fail. I get scared that I will make a misstep. I get scared that I will find out that God’s voice that seemed to speak so clearly to me was just my voice after all.
So what does one do when they are too scared to take the next step?
I imagine that God sees my fear. I imagine that God feels my anxiety. But I also imagine God whispering so low my human ears can’t quite take it in: “just keep going Gretchen… one step at a time.”
Even though the magical feeling that everything will work out ebbs and flows in me… I try to trust like Mother Teresa did that the moments happened and they meant something even when they feel so very far away, pushed back by life and time and my imperfect humanity.
And I pray and trust and hope that these steps will matter for a destination I don’t quite see lying just ahead.
#ignatianspirituality #stigantius
