Here I am

Have you ever felt a calling on your heart? Have you had the distinct impression that you are here on this planet, at this time and place, for a reason? Perhaps it was only an inkling or a hint. Or maybe you just have a faint desire or curiosity to know exactly what you’re doing here. If you don’t right now, can you think of a time when you did? Use your imagination to find that sense of destiny inside yourself. Once you’ve got something, no matter how seemingly insignificant, enlarge it.

Perhaps you have an old dream that hasn’t gone anywhere, that has never gotten off the ground. I have good news for you: your dream hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s still planted in the ground of your soul. You may have experienced disappointment or heartache. You may have lost faith in your ability to see it come to fruition. You may have even given up on your dream. But know this: your dream hasn’t given up on you. It is still calling you.

Maybe your dream seems impossible to you now, so you’ve accustomed yourself to drowning out the call, thereby saving yourself from the pain of disappointment. This is understandable but misguided. Your desires are there for a reason—especially the ones you feel you must drown out. They represent a faithful calling that won’t ever shut up until you answer it—until you open the door.

“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with them, and they with me.”
(Revelation 3:20)

This promise of Jesus (written through John to the church at Laodicea) is a promise of communion and reunion. When you reconnect with your highest callings—the highest parts of yourself, you reconnect with God. This inner relationship is the most important one you will ever cultivate. You will experience it as a leading and following, a guiding and obeying, a loving and being loved.

If you are feeling a lack of love in your life, consider this: when you estrange yourself from your dreams, you estrange yourself from God, the creative source of your dreams. Estrangement is not the way of love. If you are here, then you still have time to follow your dreams. If you are here, you still have time to water the seeds that are planted in your soul. As you do, the plant will grow, coming nearer to the sun, where you will experience the warmth and fruit of God’s love for you.

So, are you here? If so, then you can declare with the psalmist (and with Jesus, who can be seen here to be answering his own highest self!):

“Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll—
I have come to do your will, my God.”
(Psalm 40:7-8, as quoted in Hebrews 10:7)