Recognizing God’s Voice: When the Invitation Is Difficult
Responding to the Call: Love in Action, Part One
For nearly ten months, we’ve been tending our Garden Within together. We’ve spent time noticing the soil of our lives, recognizing the graces that have taken root, and becoming more aware of the wounds, judgments, fears, and desires that influence how we experience ourselves, God, and one another.
We’ve prayed with the Psalms, letting their words give voice to experiences we might otherwise keep hidden. We’ve explored the emotions that accompany our lives, learning to name what we feel rather than immediately dismissing, judging, or trying to change it. And we’ve discovered that this interior work isn’t always easy.
Some places within us require a great deal of tenderness. There are things we would rather not encounter. Sometimes, just when we think we’ve experienced healing, we discover another place inviting our attention. But we’ve also begun to recognize something beautiful.
God doesn’t invite us to know ourselves simply so that we might understand our own lives more deeply. He invites us into that understanding so that we might become more available to love and bear witness to that love.
So now we begin to ask another question: What do I do with everything I’ve been discovering? Or, perhaps more importantly: How do I begin to recognize God’s voice when He invites me to respond?
Recognizing God’s Voice Among the Voices Within
One of my dear Jesuit priest friends often reminds me that God touches us gently, lightly, and kindly. I’ve carried those words with me for years. They bring to mind an image St. Ignatius offers in his Rules for Discernment within the Spiritual Exercises.
He describes the movements of the spirits using the image of water falling upon a sponge and water striking a rock. Water entering a sponge is received gently. It soaks into the material, filling its spaces. Water striking a rock has a very different quality. It hits sharply and scatters across the surface. Ignatius uses these images to help us recognize the different ways spiritual movements may touch us. But we must understand something important about recognizing God’s voice.
The experience of these movements is also related to the direction in which we are already moving. We cannot simply assume that every comfortable feeling comes from God or that every difficult feeling is something we should resist. Sometimes God’s invitation asks something very difficult of us, and sometimes the voices that keep us from greater freedom are quite familiar, even reassuring.
This is why we’ve spent so much time learning to recognize our interior movements. We aren’t simply trying to identify which emotions feel pleasant and which feel uncomfortable. We’re learning to recognize what those movements awaken within us and where they seem to be drawing us.
Recognizing God’s voice isn’t simply recognizing how something feels. It is learning to recognize where that movement is leading us in our relationship with God.
Recognizing God’s Voice When Life Is Difficult
Years ago, I began developing a company centered around Christian movement. I believed in it deeply and hoped for what it might become and how it might serve others. But there came a time when I had to acknowledge that it wasn’t working as I had hoped. Financially, continuing became impossible, and I needed to let it go.
Was that difficult? Most definitely. Did I wish the outcome had been different? Absolutely.
There was disappointment in recognizing that something I had envisioned and worked toward wasn’t going to become what I had hoped. But something else was present, too. I experienced Jesus accompanying me in that decision. Peace existed alongside the disappointment. An awareness that although this particular endeavor was ending, my relationship with God wasn’t ending with it or even dependent upon it.
I didn’t have to pretend the company had succeeded or convince myself that the disappointment didn’t matter. And, most importantly, I wasn’t drawn to making that company’s ending a judgment on my own worth.
The company had failed to become what I hoped. But I wasn’t consumed by that failure.
I could acknowledge what had happened, learn from the experience, and continue walking with God. That is an experience I recognize as difficult consolation. Not because the circumstances were pleasant, but because I experienced God’s companionship within something painful. That companionship gave me freedom to respond.
For me, recognizing God’s voice in that moment wasn’t about hearing a clear instruction telling me what to do next. It was about recognizing that I could make a difficult decision while remaining in relationship with God.
Recognizing God’s Voice Through Emotional Awareness
Do you remember the emotions wheel we’ve been exploring these past few weeks? We’ve practiced naming what we’re experiencing, noticing where emotions arise in our bodies, and looking across the wheel for other emotional possibilities that may be present or that we might desire as a grace.
For example, I might recognize that I am afraid. As I look across the wheel, I might encounter the possibility of trust. That doesn’t mean I must replace fear with trust. It means I can bring both into my conversation with God: “Lord, I am afraid, and I desire to trust You. Help me recognize how You are accompanying me in this.”
Perhaps I discover that fear and trust are both present. Maybe one is much stronger than the other, and tomorrow that changes. This is all part of being human.
I often imagine these experiences as a scale that continues tipping and shifting. Some days I am more aware of fear. Other days trust seems easier to recognize. The invitation isn’t to force the scale into perfect balance.
It’s to become aware of what I’m holding, name it honestly, and invite God into the movement.
This is part of why emotional awareness matters when we’re recognizing God’s voice. Think about what this means when we face a difficult decision. If I hadn’t been willing to recognize the disappointment surrounding my company, I might have kept investing in something no longer sustainable because I couldn’t bear to let it go. Or I might have walked away in anger, convinced that the ending meant I had failed as a person.
By acknowledging the disappointment alongside the peace I was experiencing, I could begin to recognize a different possibility. I could let go without rejecting everything meaningful about the experience. I could recognize that something had ended without believing that God’s invitation to me had ended. And from this posture, I could remain open to what might come next.
Recognizing God’s Voice and the Freedom to Let Go
St. Ignatius speaks about a spiritual freedom he calls indifference. It can sound unappealing to our modern ears. We tend to hear it as not caring. But Ignatian indifference isn’t about becoming detached from the people and experiences that matter to us. It’s about growing in the freedom to respond to God without being completely governed by our attachment to a particular outcome.
I cared deeply about the company I had started; I wanted it to succeed, and I was disappointed when it didn’t. Yet, I was able to recognize that the life God was inviting me to live was larger than that one endeavor. I could hold both truths - the disappointment was real, and the peace was real. I didn’t need to make one disappear in order to honor the other.
I think we sometimes overlook this when we talk about recognizing God’s voice. We may expect that once we recognize God’s invitation, the uncertainty will disappear. We may imagine that peace means we will no longer experience fear, sadness, or disappointment. But that hasn’t been my experience.
Sometimes peace is simply the quiet awareness that God is accompanying me while I make a decision I wish I didn’t have to make. Sometimes freedom means acknowledging that I don’t yet know what comes next. And sometimes responding to God’s invitation means letting go of something I once believed I was being called to pursue.
God’s gentle invitation doesn’t promise an easy road. It invites me to recognize His companionship as I walk it.
Recognizing God’s Voice as We Begin to Respond
Over the past months, we’ve been doing something that can feel quite laborious. We’ve been digging a well, so to speak. We’ve been tending the soil of our Garden Within, learning to recognize what nourishes us and what restricts our freedom. And that work continues.
We don’t suddenly stop tending the garden just because we’re ready to share its fruit. New seasons will bring new discoveries and new places where healing is invited. We are beginning to recognize that the work we’ve been doing has prepared us to listen differently. When a decision arises, we can begin by noticing what is moving within us. We can recognize our desires, our fears, our hopes, and the voices that have accompanied us through our experiences. We can bring those movements into prayer and ask for the grace of recognizing God’s voice and companionship, even when the decision before us is difficult.
And we can begin to respond. Not because we’ve finally figured everything out, but because we are learning to walk with God through the uncertainty.
Next week, we’ll explore where those responses lead us, and how the love God has been cultivating within us begins to flow outward into our relationships, our communities, and the ordinary encounters of our days. For now, I invite you simply to listen. Not only for the voice that tells us what we should do, but for the gentle presence of the One who accompanies us as we discern.
An Embodied Pause: Recognizing God’s Voice
Find a comfortable place to sit. Allow your feet to rest on the ground and notice the support beneath you. Take a few gentle breaths.
Bring to mind a decision you are currently facing, whether significant or an ordinary choice that’s been weighing on you.
Notice what happens within your body as you consider it. Is there tightness somewhere? A sense of heaviness? Perhaps anticipation, hope, sadness, or fear?
Without trying to change anything, name what you recognize. Lord, this is what I am holding.
Now imagine the image of water entering a sponge. Not forcing its way in. Simply being received.
Ask yourself:
Where might I be experiencing God’s gentle presence within this decision?
What other voices or desires are asking for my attention?
What freedom might I need before I am ready to respond?
Remain here for a few breaths. You don't need to make the decision in this moment. Simply allow yourself to be accompanied.
Journaling: Recognizing God’s Voice
What decision or invitation am I facing right now? What emotions arise as I consider it, and what other emotions or graces might I notice when I look across the emotions wheel?
Where have I experienced difficult consolation in my own life? Can I recall a time when disappointment, sorrow, or fear existed alongside an awareness of God's companionship?
What might greater freedom look like in my present circumstances? Is there an outcome I'm holding tightly to, or a fear that makes it difficult to recognize where God may be inviting me?
A Closing Prayer
God who walks with me in my Garden Within, You know the hopes I carry, the fears that accompany me , and the disappointments I sometimes struggle to hold. Help me recognize Your gentle presence within the difficult decisions of my life. Give me courage to name what is true, freedom to release what I cannot control , and trust to remain open to Your invitation. When I cannot see what comes next, remind me that I do not walk alone. And as I learn to recognize Your voice, help me respond with greater freedom and love. Amen.
From the garden within me to the garden within you, where God awaits,
Kimi
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