God Callings
“The many things we have to do, the hundred and one calls on our time and attention, don’t get between ourselves and God. On the contrary, they are to us in very truth, his Body and his Blood.”—H. A. Williams in The Joy of God (Templegate, 1992).
Well, this is a novel idea! Of course, we anticipate the quiet time we will have writing, walking, or practicing Centering Prayer during the day. Still, our interactions with people during the day and at work are as much a part of our relationship with God!
The God within us is meeting with the God in our neighbor or the patients we work with, our co-workers or partners, the children we teach, or our fellow students. This is like turning on a switch in our brains. Our life is not divided into parts. Every part of our being is an offering. Every second, every hour, is an opportunity to share the love we have been so freely given. We should tape this Williams quote to the back of our cell phones to read whenever we get that last-minute phone call, just as we leave our office.
My experience has actually been that such calls become some of the most important ones we receive. It could be a novel idea to imagine God is calling each time.
Such awareness is a blending of the doing and the being aspects of our lives, our Martha and Mary parts. Perhaps we are called into a state of being; at other times, we are led to concentrate on doing. Williams asks us to consider both of these states as offerings to God.
I wonder if Jesus’ story of his visit to Mary and Martha would have been different if Martha had believed her doing was just as important, but not more important, than Mary’s being?
Joanna. https://www.joannaseibert.com/
