“Seek God, not happiness — this is the fundamental rule of all meditation. If you seek God alone, you gain happiness that is its promise.”- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
“Christ is not valued at all unless He is valued above all.”- Augustine
In Chapter 12 (“Clematis”) of WayMaker, Ann Voskamp observes that place that stretch your limits may be thin places to see God. Because we often react to adversity through turning inward. Augustine referred to this human tendency as incurvatis in se. Most significantly, Ann stresses, incurvatis in se curves us away from the heart of God. And ultimately breaks our attachment as well as our own hearts.
Consequently, Ann counsels, you end up digging your relationships a pretty big grave if you keep burying how you feel. In addition, unless you speak your fears and questions out loud, they only grow louder in your soul. Yet, we tend to curve around our aches in an effort to self-protect. When in reality it’s how we begin to self-destruct.
Therefore, Ann exhorts, we need to rock and sway with the waves. The author writes:
“Life is waves, and we are rocked and regulated by the swelling and falling of waves, and, if we let it, if we let go and let come what comes, the rhythm of the waves can rock us into the deepest, healing safe. What is in the way is making the way. Surrender. Waves don’t have to drown us; waves can rock us into a healing place (emphasis Ann’s).”
In conclusion, Ann encourages, God encircles and beckons us across the waves to attach our hearts to Him. To:
- stay close
- crave His presence
- live a cruciform reach toward Him for comfort
- turn to Him countless times a day as the safe cleft in the rock for our souls
For God made the soul to fit into a cleft in the rock. Hence, proximity always eases anxiety.
Today’s question: What do you think of Bonhoeffer’s fundamental rule of all meditation? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: “Coregulation soothes agitation”
