Do we find the divine presence in our defined ways? The divine, whatever that may be, wishes to give us the joy of surprise in visiting us in unexpected forms. There may not be anything at all that was thought to be divine.
There is in us a search for God, and eagerness to find him.
Compare the search with the following four images
Compare the search with the following four images
1) A group of good friends preparing a boy for his first night; how to behave, what to speak... For an added aid they send a set of words he could speak. when the time arrived the situation was not as he was instructed. He started shivering from top to bottom. Finally, the girl said: "Relax, don't say anything, feel comfortable, I am OK."
We receive a number of prayers everyday, for different times, needs, occasions. There also offers that your intentions will be prayed for. What we really needed was to learn how to pray in our daily situations, integrating our busy schedule and our spiritual need. Instead, in the flood of prayers we are confused which is the best prayer we can make.
2) Someone of goodwill sees a poor man eating puffed rice. Thinking that it is his favourite food the former orders for him four sacks of puffed rice, without knowing that the poor man was eating it because he could not afford nothing else.
Spiritual guidance also often goes this way. "People like it," is the only reason for the styles suggested and followed, without considering how much of personal growth is achieved by the method, even of it gives a temporary consolation for the moment.
The above two images were about the guidance given for prayer or spirituality. the following two could be our own personal situations in prayer.
1) Think of a child who is very happy with a balloon it has got. It protects it, even without allowing others to touch it, with great enthusiasm. Days go on.. the balloon either breaks in the hands of the child itself, or gradually loses the air. Now there is no enthusiasm, no surprise, the child does not even look at the balloon.
How protective or definite are we about our methods of spirituality and our clarity about how God speaks and appears? They are concepts we made for our clarity in understanding, and we need to be ready to accept if the divine desires to reveals to us in a different way. Often our eagerness and enthusiasm fade away because the 'things of God' that we assumed have not really connected with our human reality, of joys, celebrations, passions, desires, and suffering.
2) Imagine we were for a long time in deep friendship with someone on Facebook, deep sharing, long chatting, Likes and Shares for every Post... One day we realise it was a fake account. With whom were we chatting and sharing?
Would our relationship with God turn out to be such? We have no escape to say that this is what was taught by my religion, instructed by my counsellor... We need to check our own life whether it receives better nourishment to be real humans, free, grateful, and at peace.
All these attempts to search for God and the eagerness to know Him, and to help those who seek, could be genuine. Yet why do we lose on the way?
Probably because we focus on what we think and the method we try to follow. We magnify them, follow them strictly, and why not, unknowingly may be worshipping them.
God's surprising visits gives us joy. Keeping a precious gift for God and giving it when God comes is also a joy. Preciousness does not depend on the value, but what really makes him happy. How do we know? From the memories of his previous visits, from the moment of conception as the first visit.
