Listening to Your Life

Back in 1992, Fredrick Buechner published a book of daily devotions titled, Listening to Your Life. It was given to me by a friend, and has served as a quiet voice, reminding me to pay attention to the everyday events of life. It is a great volume.

The entry for January 14th, Alive and Changing, speaks to me.

“God speaks to us through our lives, we often say too easily. Something speaks anyway, spells out some sort of godly or godforsaken meaning to us through the alphabet of our years, but often it takes many years and many further spellings out before we start to glimpse, or think we do, a little of what meaning is. Even then we glimpse it only dimly, like the first trace of dawn on the rim of the night, and even then it has a meaning that we cannot fix and be sure of once and for all because it is always incarnate meaning and thus as alive and changing as we are ourselves alive and changing.”

Faith is God’s dynamic gift to us. It comes through God’s grace and is deepened through intentional cultivation. A quiet few moments at the break of day saying, “Thy will be done,” might be a good place to start. I have a trusted friend who begins each day by asking God to “use” him; God does.

We are not living out a chemical equation; we are seeking to deepen relationships with God and one another. Faith cannot be grasped, but to use Buechner’s word, glimpsed. If we are clear that faith is about seeking and deepening relationships, perhaps we can find the freedom to embrace the flux. Faith is a living process and so are we.