Good morning…

“I am grateful for not having to know in advance what God was planning for me,” continues Henri Nouwen in the book I quoted in yesterday’s post At Home With God. “But I am grateful as well for the new place that has been opened in me through all the inner pain.”

Nouwen continues: “I have a new vocation now. It is the vocation to speak and to write from that place (at home in God as God is at home in me) back into the many places of my own and other people’s restless lives. I had to kneel before the Father, put my ear against his chest and listen, without interruption, to the heartbeat of God. Then, and only then, can I say carefully and very gently what I hear. I know now that I have to speak from eternity into time, from the lasting joy into the passing realities of our short existence in this world, from the house of love into the house of fear, from God’s abode into the dwellings of human beings.”

Diligently recording for us the heartbeat of God, Nouwen concludes: “I am called to enter into the inner sanctuary of my own being where God has chosen to dwell. The only way to that place is prayer, unceasing prayer. Many struggles and much pain can clear the way, but I am certain that only unceasing prayer can let me enter in.” (The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming, 17)

I pick up my own pen to expand upon Henri’s thoughts. Every morning I write from the place where God and I meet in unceasing prayer. I blog carefully and gently what I hear as I climb upon our LORD’s lap, as I press my ear against our Father’s chest, as I listen intently for our God’s beating heart. My writing fingers are like a stethoscope amplifying what I hear, speaking from eternity into time, from lasting joy into passing realities, from the house of love into the house of fear, from God’s abode into the dwellings of human beings. At home in God as God is at home in me, I write back into the many facets of our restless lives.

Write this down for the next generation so people not yet born will praise God (Psalm 102:18, MSG).

…Sue…