Greetings readers. This week I am simply providing you some quotes from Matthew Kelly’s book “A Call to Joy: Living in the Presence of God” from its first chapter, “The Voice of God.”
This book was written over 20 years ago when Matthew was 23 years old. In the prior five years, Matthew spoke to over a million people in seminars, talks, and retreats in 46 countries. Millions more have been touched by his writings and appearances on major radio and television programs worldwide. Young, charismatic,and extraordinarily engaging, Matthew comes to the aid of a generation desperately searching for some meaning in life deeper than the pursuit of material things. Exploring the challenges of our modern world, he brilliantly puts into context the unchanging truths of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. In a Call to Joy, he shares both his remarkable personal story and his uniquely inspiring insights on faith, love, and the trials and triumphs of the spiritual life.
Enjoy!
In the midst of all the hustle and bustle of the world, there is a whisper in the marketplace. The whisper is the voice of God. He is calling to you. He is beckoning to you. He is gently inviting you to a quiet place, and His call is a call to joy. If you listen, you can hear His voice saying, “Come to Me.” He is calling you into His presence so that your life may become a dance for joy.
Holiness is about grasping the moments of each day and using them to grow and become a better person and about assisting others in achieving the same. It is this that gives glory to God.
Smile, say less and listen more, pray, and trust.
A smile is an invitation, and invitation to someone else to dance for joy.
The following is a true story. One day a priest found himself walking through the Bowery in New York City, a place where many homeless people can be found. The priest was with three friends, and they were on their way to take a ferry ride. As they walked along, they came upon a man sitting on the pavement. He was very dirty and look depressed. When he met the priest’s eyes, he beckoned to him to come over. Touched, the priest move toward him. But his friends quickly spoke up: “Come on, you don’t want to go near that bum.”
The priest ignored their warning and move still closer while his friends watched in amazement. The priest said a few words to the man. Then he smiled and moved on to catch the ferry.
As they were waiting to board, the same man came running up to the priest, sobbing like a child; he pulled out a gun and said, “Father, just before you walked along this morning I was about to go down an alley and blow my brains out. When you came along I waved to you and you responded to my call, my cry, my plea. Then you spoke to me as you would speak to someone you love, but it wasn’t any of this that stopped me from doing what I had planned. As you started to leave, you looked deep into my eyes and smiled. It was a first sign of human affection that I’ve been shown in seven years and I just wanted you to know that today your smile has given me life.“
The two spoke for a while, and the priest discovered that this man had been once been a doctor practicing at John Hopkins Hospital. Then the priest gave him his blessing and went on his way.
Later, the priest went to the hospital to find out what he could about this man.He brought the man’s name up to various doctors and nurses and was told that he had in fact been a doctor there, but he was having some trouble so he left. No one knew where the priest could find him now.
Three years later the phone rang and the priest was greeted by a well-spoken voice saying, “Hello, I’m Dr. Lawson. Remember me? From the Bowery? I’m back at the hospital now. I just wanted you to know a smile can make a difference, sometimes all the difference.“
If you do nothing else today, smile at someone who needs to see you smile.
Say less and listen more. These five words have improved my relationships with people more than any others. Everyone has a story. Your story is the thread of your life. It is when we lose or forget our story that our lives begin to fall apart.
Experience is not the only teacher.
The voice of God never ceases in our lives; he just uses different channels.
We are always wanting to know more, yet we are often not prepared to listen. We want to know more, but we do not live what we already know.
Our big struggle takes place between the false self and the true self. The more we abandon the false self and surrender to the true self, the more we grow in perfection. This battle takes place primarily in our hearts. It is a battle between power and love, between the love of power and the power to love. As we discover and nurture our true selves through prayer and reflection, the power to love grows in our hearts and defeat its enemy, reducing our love of power.
Suffering puts us in touch with what is really important. Sacrifice spells out our commitment and confirms our love.
Nothing in this life is a coincidence. There are no accidents, just providence. Providence, providence, all is providence.
To breathe is not a right, it is a gift.
One of the first steps toward being able to recognize and be in touch with the divine plan for you is discovering the difference between a right and a gift. In the modern Western world we have an interesting combination of an overdeveloped sense of rights and over developed ego. When the two are mixed together, they form an extremely harmful formula known as U4 (unfulfilled, unhappy, unsatisfied, and unbearable).
I don’t under stand why I’m alive, or why I wake up each day, how I breathe, and many other things, but I do know that one day I will not wake up. Death, however, is not a mystery. Life is the mystery. Life is sacred.
Life is to be reverenced in all its forms.
To hear his voice you must be willing to change and obey his words. To achieve the necessary frame of mind and heart, we must recognize that God is good and that he calls us to do what is best. His challenge to change is much more than just that. His challenge to change is really a call to growth and to fulfillment. Fulfillment for a person is not a place, it is not a destination, it is a path. Journeying along the path is fulfilling. Standing still on the path is depressing.
When you stand still, you reject “the struggle” and you refuse to change and grow. Simultaneously you reject fulfillment, happiness, the dance for joy, and everything else that is eternally good.
God is your Father. He is a loving Father with wonderful plans for his children. Regardless of the greatest plan you can put together for yourself with the greatest power of your imagination, his plan is better, greater, more exciting, and more rewarding. Believe in his plan. Ask him to reveal his plan to you. Then listen…
Standing still on the path is depressing.. Believe in his plan. Ask him to reveal his plan to you. Then listen. Blessings as you GO FORTH ON YOUR PATH! merlin