Grace and peace to you from God, our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. In my office I have the book Listening For the Heartbeat of God by J. Philip Newell. It is on the shelf where I place the books that I have purchased but have not read yet. The book discusses Celtic spirituality and its value in our times. The subject matter is not what I want to focus on in my letter this month, but rather the title.
As I was trying to determine what I was going to write about, I was staring at the shelf behind my desk when I noticed the title of the book. It caused me to begin to ponder the concept of listening for God’s heartbeat. What would that be like? What might we discover if we truly when on a quest to hear the heartbeat of God? Where might that quest lead us? What would we hear?
I have not even begun to tackle these questions but I do believe that there might be great value in such a quest. One value would be the need for us to slow down and seek the quiet if we even want to make an attempt to hear God’s heartbeat. As summer approaches, I find that the activity level of my life is not going to reduce but shift. One of those shifts will be where a majority of activity takes place. Over the previous six months, most of the activity of my life has occurred indoors. With the change of seasons and the increased temperatures outside, my activity will be at least fifty percent outside I would expect. This to me gives me a chance to listen for God’s heartbeat in the midst of nature (which would go hand and hand with Celtic spirituality). I think that if we truly spent some time outside listening for God’s heartbeat, we would stand a chance of discovering it within the sounds of God’s creation.
The other value that I wish to highlight in this quest is the location of God in our lives on such a quest. Today we are impacted with a high level of information and knowledge through media, the internet, and the voices of individuals in our lives. We have more than enough information and advice in regards to decisions that we need to make. But if we were to stop and listen for the heartbeat of God, make that our starting point in our decision-making process, I believe that we would see a tremendous impact the decisions we make. The quest of listening would help to strength the central point of God in our lives. Acknowledging God’s central role in our lives would definitely influence our decisions and actions.
These are only two values that have come to mind as I ponder the potential of a quest to listen for the heartbeat of God. I am sure that each of you can identify more values and I, over time, will do the same. But what an exciting quest this truly may be. My challenge for you this month is to pondering the questions that I lifted up at the beginning of this article and consider taking the quest to hear the heartbeat of God.
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