There is a story in the Christian scriptures of Jesus on a boat with his disciples. He is sleeping and they wade into a storm. They scream for him to wake up and do something. He gets up, moves his hand out towards the sea and instructs it to calm down. Then he turns to them and asks why they were so alarmed and what happened to their faith. God’s approach to the storms of our life is in complete contrast to our reaction. God knows the difference between the calm of his love residing in our hearts and the storm we are experiencing outside of it. God is the knowing presence which reminding us that outside circumstances need not shake us at our core. All we need to do is pause and connect with God to experience it in our hearts. It comes when we rest in God’s certainty. It is experienced when we take a breath and remind ourselves we are not our outside circumstances. It is a hard lesson to learn. It has taken me many years of dates to resonate more closely with the truth of my heart than my outside experiences. We are surrounded by messages all throughout the world, telling us we are all the elements outside of our hearts. God isn’t the one who needs to wake up and do something about the situation. We are called to wake up to the reality in our hearts. Taking the time to cultivate the inner awareness of our connection to God enables us to approach life with a sense of calm. This calm allows us to be unshaken by every little bump or storm. It doesn’t mean pretending everything is okay. It is a boldness of dealing with the storms because they are the reality facing us, but detaching enough so we do not see them as a reflection of who we are. It is easy to label ourselves by our experiences but God invites us at every breath to choose instead our inner calm reality of the love with which we were made. It reminds me of an experience I had a while back. I pictured Jesus holding me close and comforting me. As I rested my head on his chest I saw the sacred heart with the thorns around it right there on his chest. I asked him if it hurt and he smiled, looked me in the eye and said, “only when I believe its real”. We all have our thorny experiences wanting to penetrate our inner core, but we can see them for the illusions they are and choose to believe in God’s truth of who we are anyway.
Be From Calm!
on April 22, 2017My prayer for us is the courage to be with the calm knowing of our hearts no matter what storms want to shake us up or pierce us today.
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