Kelly Call to Joy

Living in the Presence of God
1. Auflage 1999
ISBN: 978-1-937509-04-0
Verlag: Beacon Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 204 Seiten

In the last five years more than one million people in forty-six counties have attended Matthew Kelly's talks, retreats, and seminars. Millions more have been touched by his writings and appearances on major radio and television programs worldwide. Young, charismatic, and extraordinarily engaging, Matthew Kelly 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 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.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kelly, Matthew

Leseproben

CHAPTER 1
THE VOICE OF GOD
JOY is not simply a feeling of happiness. Joy is the all-intoxicating feeling of becoming. It is the greatest of emotional and spiritual sensations. We experience joy when we grow, and we grow when we live in the presence of God and listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. I have spent twenty-three years on this earth, and just four years ago I heard the call to joy. As I was preparing for bed on the evening of April 7, 1993, I realized that I was at a crossroads in my life. In some ways the day had been no different from any other. Early that morning, as my younger brothers rushed around preparing for school, I had gotten out of bed, wandered downstairs in my pajamas, taken a large glass from the cupboard, and filled it with orange juice. Then I’d sat down at our piano and had played and sung for some time. After my brothers had left for school and thus vacated the bathroom, I showered and went off to the university for the day. Getting into bed that night, I reached for my Walkman from the bedside table so that I could listen to some music before I went to sleep. As I did, I sensed a strong external presence that was urging me not to pick up the Walkman. I ignored the sensation. When I put on the headphones, I had a similar feeling, only this time it was twice as powerful. Again I ignored it. I turned my Walkman on, and after a few seconds of listening to the music, I felt the same urge for a third time. This time, however, it was almost overpowering. I knew it was something I had never experienced before. I took my Walkman off, got out of bed, and fell to my knees. As I knelt there in the darkness and silence, I asked myself why I was kneeling in the middle of my room at this hour. But before I could answer this question, I heard a voice speak to me—a voice as clear as any voice I have ever heard. “Keep doing what you are doing. Believe in yourself and believe in Me,” the voice said. I looked around. There was no one else in the room. My brother was asleep and snoring in the room next to mine. I looked around again, but somehow I knew I wouldn’t find anyone. Thirteen words, yet because of them, my life would never be the same. Three days later I heard the voice for a second time. It was then that this mysterious person identified Himself as God the Father. From that moment on, these encounters with the Divine became a regular part of my day, and although they are now welcomed and appreciated, they have never lost their initial quality of being intriguingly unexpected. As those first days went by, God visited me three, four, five times a day—sometimes when I least anticipated it; sometimes for long periods and other times ever so briefly. He spoke to me as a friend, encouraging, guiding, counseling, and advising. He told me simple things and little by little began to open my eyes and ears to the spiritual realm. He constantly encouraged me to better myself, to strive heroically for holiness. He tried to inspire me to live every day with courage and fortitude. I continually failed Him, but He never stopped picking me up and giving me a fresh start, a new zeal. He taught me to spend time every day doing things that inspired me, from reading the Scriptures to watching young children at play. To live an inspiring life, you must be inspired. Since that first night, which remains engraved on my memory, I have had close to fifteen hundred similar visitations. Who is this Person who can be heard but not seen? I believe that the voice I hear is the voice of God. Throughout the ages, many have claimed to hear the voice of the Divine. Others have stood in judgment of those who have made such claims. Some people will accept no proof, while others judge by the fruits. In those early days I too searched for some proof, other than the actual experience, that God was speaking to me. I didn’t have to search far, for the fruit of the experience was a deep inner peace. As an initial proof, this was enough. Then as I began to apply what I heard to my daily life, this inner serenity grew stronger and deeper and my belief more and more firm. Recently in my travels, as I have witnessed people opening themselves to the message and applying it to their lives, I have seen that each of them has been touched in a different way. So it is finally in the hearts of these men and women from all walks of life and from many countries around the world that I have found the fruits of these messages—and thus the proof that they come from the Divine. God speaks not only to me. He speaks to me so that I can hear, receive, understand, and share the message, but He also opens His mouth and whispers deep within the heart of every person who will humbly and sincerely listen. If the message is true, then those who apply it to their lives will experience true freedom. The by-products of this freedom are peace, joy, and happiness. And these are the very things that we all desire. In these pages I hope to unfold the message for you. I will try to reveal not only the person I am and the person I am not but also the person I wish to become. It is my hope that these pages will help you too to see the person you are, the person you are not, and the person you desire to be. In this book I have tried to synthesize the wisdom that the voice of the Divine has shared with me over the past four years. It is practical wisdom for the journeying soul. The journey of the soul is a difficult one. The same difficulties arise for all of us. For example, surely each of us in our own way has struggled with pride. Perhaps we have tried to stand up to this enemy and fight it on our own, but experience inevitably teaches us that pride will always win under such circumstances. Over time we come to see that victory over pride comes only with our humble surrender. The challenge is to develop ways of responding to such difficulties without surrendering our peace and joy. The journey of the soul costs. It will cost you more than anything you have ever done in your life, but the rewards will prove everything else in your life to be insignificant in comparison. It is a journey or both the young and the old, the rich and the poor, for both men and women regardless of age, occupation, or vocation, and it is compatible with every honest human activity. The journey is the struggle of the soul to seek, discover, and live truth. As I began this journey, I found that the words of the Father inspired me, but so did many other things that I had not really noticed before. The daily struggles of people everywhere began to mean something to me. I was being pulled out of my self-centered world, and I was being shown a whole universe. The pieces of the puzzle of life slowly but noticeably began to fall into place. The joy comes from the struggle. My response was His request. My response was to struggle. I struggled to better myself in every area of my life. I struggled to remove the things from my life that I could now see were self-destructive and sinful. I saw that morality was not about right and wrong but about life and death, joy and misery. I struggled to live the wisdom that was being shared with me. I struggled then and I struggle now. I have found that when I am struggling to better myself, to change, and to grow with courage and patience, my life becomes a dance. A dance for joy. During the early days of my journey, my priorities began to change. I became less interested in parties and more interested in spending time one on one with my friends. Time spent alone became an indispensable part of my day, and I began to try to slow my life down. Then one day, all of a sudden, it happened: the people around me, my family and friends, began to notice that I was changing. Some thought these changes were for the better, others were not so sure, but all of them wanted to know why. In those early days I had found a confidant in a gentle, wise man, a priest who was about fifty years old. He seemed well versed in spiritual matters and had humility, charm, and the ability to apply the faith in practical ways to everyday life. I decided that I would share my experiences with few others, apart from him. So when friends and family began to inquire about the changes that were taking place in my life, I tried to employ the gentleness of a dove and the subtlety of a serpent in my explanation. I told them that I was just beginning to appreciate truly all the wonderful people and things in my life because I now recognized that ultimately they were all gifts from God. I was happy, but more important, I knew what was making me happy. The struggle brought me happiness. Remember “the struggle” is the struggle to better yourself, to change, and to grow with courage and patience. Many of my friends asked me, “Matthew, are you in love?” They looked disillusioned and disappointed when I told them that there was no new young lady in my life or in my heart. Activities I had previously spent endless amounts of time and energy pursuing became almost unimportant. I desired quiet time each day and I longed for people to understand and share the joy I was experiencing. Then, after about three months of daily communication with the Divine, I began to share the story of my experiences with a dozen friends. These were all people who would try to understand and who would benefit from the message, I felt. If they thought I was crazy, they didn’t say so; instead, their ongoing friendship shows me that they recognized and respected the profundity of what I told them. I shared my joy with these people and experienced a whole new...