Journeying to Grace

At times when we are prayerfully discerning and wondering if we are taking the right path, I think our spirit is sometimes a combination of what is already stirring within us and what is working quietly below the surface. And though I try to fully trust and be open to God’s will, I also desire to experience His loving guidance or to at least receive a comforting, divine nudge in the right direction. But after several lessons in patience and awareness, I have learned not to seek this clarity in the extraordinary or spectacular. Where I have had the deepest moments of faithful strength and understanding, is in the familiar.

When my spirit is open to the Lord, He often reaches me in the ordinary things I’m already doing. In these brief moments, I see and feel what I need to know: He is there. He hears my prayer. He will lead me. I have eventually become better about looking where I am – not where I’m not…or where I hope to be…or where I wish I was. I found I was missing out on being ‘present,’ so I was missing the Lord’s subtle movements of love.

Just this morning I felt that grace. On my drive, I was in prayer about an idea to address a specific situation. Was it the right idea? More importantly, was it the right idea for my spirit and the spirit of those involved? As I prayed on that, I reached a traffic light that is reliably red whenever I approach. But not today. I was lifted when I saw the green turn arrow that seemed to remain green longer than usual so I could continue, so I could ‘go.’ In this every-day, ordinary instance of moving forward without having to stop, I felt an overwhelming and peaceful ‘yes.’  I didn’t doubt it; I didn’t wonder if it really meant something….I just knew this was of God. Similarly, when I’ve been on a regular walk in a familiar setting, yet with an intentionally open heart, what I hear, feel, or experience can be far from regular.

Where has God found you in the ordinary? Maybe you garden, and you discover an unexpected new bloom that brings you renewed joy and hope. Maybe the friend who has been on your mind for a while calls you to see how you are. Are these regular, familiar moments showing us and opening us to God’s faithful love?  With thanksgiving for these blessings, let us continue to prayerfully look at our routine moments with a new awareness of God’s quiet signs of love, so that what is stirring in us and what is quietly working below the surface of our spirit are open to the graces the Lord desires to show us.