Young adults who are discerning their vocation from God often ask me, "How do I hear God's voice in my life?" Sometimes we think that God's will for us comes from beyond us, outside our world, like the Ten Commandments delivered to Moses on stone tablets. Yet a closer look reveals that God is present and active within us and among us through the ordinary circumstances of life and through all the decisions we make that shape our lives.
In reflecting on my own life, I realize how my vocation to be a Dominican Sister was revealed to me through many years of paying attention to how God was meeting me in my life and how my response to God's presence brought me a deep sense of joy and fulfillment that only God can give.
Here is just a glimpse at one meeting with God that happened my junior year in college. I was a history major. My academic adviser told me I needed to take a course on the Protestant Reformation because that particular split in Christendom had powerful political ramifications for all of Europe. So quite unexpectedly, I ended up taking my first college religion class. This situation has God written all over it!
During one class, our professor explained to us that one of the great themes of the Protestant Reformation was the right of every Christian to read the Bible in his/her own language. At the end of the discussion, our professor said: "I challenge each one of you to pick up the Bible and read one of the Gospels all the way through." Can you hear God's voice echoing in this challenge?
Since I didn't even own a Bible, I borrowed a one from a Protestant friend. One night I decided to take up the challenge. I opened to the Gospel of Matthew and started to read it. I got to the passage in the Sermon on the Mount, "Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you." I sensed, for the first time, the presence of God with me, speaking these words directly to my heart, awakening me to a divine love that I had never known before, a love unsurpassed. "Ask and you shall receive!" What open-handed, unconditional love! It wasn't "Get good grades, and I will love you!" or "Do what I say, and I will love you." Rather, I experienced God's presence as a lavish, unconditional love. I was in tears. This experience was totally unexpected. God's love was real!
This meeting with God, which had happened through very ordinary circumstances, became a beginning step on the way toward fulfilling my religious vocation. Through the help of many other faithful Christians, I gradually learned how to develop my relationship with God through prayer, community, and service to the poor and those in need.
How do you sense God is working in your life? What is your response?
Blessings on your Lent.
