Excerpts from Henri Nouwen’s Show Me the Way: Daily Lenten Readings:
Living a spiritual life requires a change of heart, a conversion . . . an inner experience of oneness. We realize that we are in the center, and that from there all that is and all that takes place can be seen and understood as part of the mystery of God’s life with us. Our conflicts and pains, our tasks and promises, our families and friends, our activities and projects, our hopes and aspirations, no longer appear to us as a fatiguing variety of things that we can barely keep together, but rather as affirmations and revelations of the new life of the Spirit in us . . . What matters is to listen attentively to the Spirit and to go obediently where we are being led, whether to a joyful or a painful place.
Poverty, pain, struggle, anguish, agony, and even inner darkness may continue to be part of our experience. They may even be God’s way of purifying us. But life is no longer boring, resentful, depressing, or lonely because we have come to know that everything that happens is part of our way to the house of the Father.
God, help us to remember that the experiences, challenges, and circumstances of our life are just part of the way that You have set out for us to come to Your house and to be made more like your Son. May Your grace allow us to respond to life mentally, emotionally, and physically from an eternal perspective rather than from our own limited human vista.
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