The Victorian styled home needs a coat of fresh paint. Many years ago, someone started sanding the peeling paint, primed a few spots, and even began to apply blue painter’s tape around the glass of the windows. Years have passed since this initial work without any additional progress. Yesterday, I noticed the painter’s tape sags, the adhesive deteriorated. What happened to the owner’s dream of renovation? Maybe the owner lost interest, energy, funding. There is a story to the sagging tape and lack of paint.
Our spiritual homes are similar. Maybe we hear a teaching, read a sacred text, or have a conversation that calls us into a deeper part of the Spiritual journey. Our spirit resonates with the words, a longing for transformation is deposited into us. We say a loud or quiet, yes, to God’s call. We open our hearts to God’s invitation.
Then life happens. Doubt moves into the living room of your soul, fear takes residence in your heart, and you wonder, “what was I thinking?” You let the inner work, like the painter’s tape, go. The call seems to shrivel, yet it hangs around. Meanwhile, the Holy Spirit waits. Perhaps sitting at your soul’s kitchen table with a cup of tea and shortbread cookie, enjoying a thick novel. Waiting for you to hear God’s voice again. Maybe today. Maybe today you will open your heart to the quiet invitation from God. Maybe today you will open the paint can, stir the paint, grab a brush, and begin.
No? Turning a page in the book, looking around, seeing what could be, the Spirit waits.
If today you hear God’s voice, harden not your heart.