Love can be a ‘many splendoured thing’ but it can also make our life complicated. Loving our Beloved first allows us to find serenity and a foundation from which we can bring love to a loveless world.
Destined to become the Bride of Christ how do we ‘practice for Paradise?’ It is not about wearing a habit or practising a devotion but, wherever we are, turning our face to the Beloved each day and saying ‘yes.’
Even though we may be certain of the call of God on our life the church may not always agree with our timing. How do we cope when our heart says ‘yes’ and those around us says ‘no’?
There is no circumstance in which we find ourselves wherein God does not call us to give our life away. We should always be alert to the voice of God and be eager to follow.
New beginnings need familiarity and consistency and when things change unexpectedly we are shaken. For this reason it is unwise to journey alone without someone to help us as a shepherd does her sheep.
The lesson of the cross is that the answer to the world’s pain is to wear it. It is only when we learn to pray for those who hurt us that we will cease paasing on their pain and become like Christ to a hurting world.
We are not able to always sepnd time ‘in the Trysting Place’ of a quiet enclosure and often find ourselves thrust into a busy noisy world. Each of us must aim to find ways of taking our quiet place with us so that we can hear God’s love song clearly.
When faced with inevitable change and trying to discern what of the new to embrace and what of the old to retain our aim must be to choose only those things which draw us closer to love.
To learn that God loves to watch us do what we love to do to prosper the work of the Gospel brings a great freedom and makes ‘drudgery divine’.
‘Praying without ceasing’ and ‘rejoicing in the Lord always’ can seem to be a counsel of perfection. However unless we manage to carry our ‘Trysting Place’ with us the world wil remain lost and loveless.
Suffolk Vicar 