Reflecting on our Journey
In our life journey, we need to pause occasionally in order to rest in God’s grace and to ponder about life. Without pause and reflection, our journey may become tiring and even boring.
Henri Nouwen in his book ‘Here and Now’ writes:
“It is remarkable how much of our life is lived without reflection on its meaning. It is not surprising that so many people are busy but bored! They have many things to do and always running to get them done but beneath the hectic activity they often wonder if anything is truly happening. A life that is not reflected upon eventually loses its meaning and becomes boring.”
Reflecting on our lives as we live them allows us to ask - What does it mean? What is God trying to tell us? How are we called to live in the midst of all this? Without such questions our lives become numb and flat.
As we “play back” our journey, we begin to see that our hearts have been deeply influenced or troubled by various events and experiences. Through pondering upon them, we may begin to see their meaning and significance to us, to encounter “the inner reality” of those events and experiences.
Richard Foster writes “to reflect, to ruminate on the events of our time will lead us to the inner reality of those events. Reflection brings us to see things from God’s perspective. When we ponder the meaning of what we study (our life Journey) we come to hear and see things in a new way.”
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
Soren Kierkegaard
(written by K Ohtawa)