God is leading us gently

Today, in the first reading of the prophet Isaiah we hear God telling that He will lead us. He will show us the way to go, the way to happiness, and our peace will be flowing like a river.

This peace, so it seems, comes up a lot for me lately. Last weekend Fr Ciaran OP gave us our Advent retreat, and asked us to contemplate what God has done for us so far. And apart from all kinds of individual events, my main question was what is the difference between where I am at now and six years ago.

And the anwser is that I found a deep profound happiness and peace, where I think peace might be the best desciption of the two. Happiness can be asociated with a temperal fuzzy feeling, and I was surely happy a lot in that way before, but I think peace discibes a more stabel continuous disposition, and as such more or less includes happiness.

Even when it is not always that apparent that this peace is there, it is. It is easy to get used to it, in a way, and maybe St. John of the Cross describes this when he says that on our journey toward God there are times when somebody doesn't feel to be doing well as the sensations do not seem to be there anymore. However, when reflecting on ones inner state you start to realise that there is no other place you want to go, having the final goal in view. And there is no way that I want to go back loosing this inner peace even if it's prescence is not always that obvious.

God is helping us on our way, but we have to respond. In Advent in particular we reflect on that. In the Gospel Jesus says we are as children in the Market place "saying, We have piped unto you, and you have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and you have not lamented." In a way I take from this exactly that, God wants to help us, but what can He do when we don't respond to His call...