St John of the Cross, “soul is in God like a stone buried in the earth. The soul is attracted to the deepest center of God like the stone is attracted to the deepest center of the earth. This attraction is mutual. The force of attraction between the soul and the center of God is not gravity but love.”
Where is the anchor of your heart? What about your soul? Do you feel an attraction to something that is unexplainable? A deep desire for something bigger than your physical life?
St John of the Cross’ metaphor of our soul’s attraction to God by love being similar to a stone attracted to the earth by gravity is a beautiful image. It reminds me of Margaret Silf’s road map of our lives in the book Inner Compass. She explains that our lives are comprised of layers: Where I am? How I am? Who I am? The deepest center – I am.
Where I am is my connection to circumstance, the things in my environment I cannot change. This is my past. It is my family, where I come from, the outer part of me.
How I am is how I respond to the environment, my circumstance and to others. I can love. I can be angry. I can be afraid. I can be merciful and compassionate. I can accept things or not. This is where I make choices and affect changes within in myself and the world.
Who I am is my true being. It is who I truly am, where I face my indifference. It’s the comfort and peace of my being and it is the challenges I face as I see the differences between the outer me and the person created by God. This is my spiritual being in the I am that lay at the deepest part of my soul. This is where my relationship with God is, where my seed of God’s love grows and produces fruit. This is where I journey through prayer, the very essence of my journey.
In our lives, we will move between each of the layers – back and forth. Some people may never move into the who I am because of the risk and the challenges they may face by approaching a relationship with God. Those of us who do move here may be faced with challenges by seeing the gap between life in the where we are and the person God created us to be. In this space we gain wisdom, strength, and love. We begin to find acceptance with joy to circumstance that we cannot change. It challenges us to see the things where God is calling us to transform to be resurrected from. This is where our intimate relationship with God fuels a trust in Him.
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As we continue to dive deeper the love of God attracts us to the center, to the deeper core of us. This is where our deepest desires lay. Where we are most in touch with who God is in us and who He created us to be. This is where our anchor is. And everything else should be centered and directed from this point as we transition through each layer of ourself back and forth. Processing circumstance into our action based on who we truly are in the one who created us.
Through this movement, there are times we may have an experience that is not explainable, that is providential. It is something that is tangential to all the layers of our being. It is a moment when we have truly been touched by God and he has moved and united all layers fusing our where I am to the how I am and the who I am, driving roots to the center, anchoring our total being to Him. When this happens His light shines around us, glowing from our center for all to see. This is a point of spiritual freedom, the top of the mountain in our journey.
Have you allowed yourself to be open to move into the who I am, allowing God to anchor Himself from your where I am to the center of your being, to your heart?
Categories: Faith, Seeking God
Women Who Walk By Faith 
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