I lived through a most difficult situation when I was in my mid forties. One day, I talked to one of my Christian friends and arranged a time for she and I to meditate together. She prayed for me at that time. A few days later she gave me words from the Bible. My life changed since then. The change was gradual, not accidental. At that time, I didn’t know God. When she gave me these words, while I was in this difficult situation, I already believed in God and believed He arranged the events that happend in my life.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. (Deuteronomy 6:5)

Therefore you shall keep the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments which I command you today, to observe them. (Deuteronomy 7:11)

Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. (Joshua 1:9)

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. (Jeremiah 29:11)

That is the first time I “heard” God speak to me. Later on I listened to online courses that my friend recommended and started to learn about God. Because those words so touched my heart, since then I learned with my heart and tried hard to do as I has been taught. In that time I didn’t know what was the meaning of “with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength” . But I tried to understand from the stories people shared and experiences in my daily life. In those few months of Bible reading, I heard God speak to me through His words sometimes. Gradually, I learned to listen to Him instead of reading the words. Now that I know Baha’u’llah, I listen what He has said, instead of reading what He wrote. God has touched my heart at the begining of learning about Him. It is God Who taught me to live with my heart, see and listen to the world with my heart, not my mind. During the time I followed Buddha’s teaching, I read sutras. After following God, I learned to listen from my heart. I realize what a difference when we use our heart, instead of our mind, to live and learn about spiritual things and God. Connecting with the spirit comes from our heart, as well as knowing the invisible God. God really deserves our love for the rest of our life with all our heart, our soul and our strength.

For if you carefully keep all these commandments which I command you to do—to love the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways, and to hold fast to Him— then the Lord will drive out all these nations from before you, and you will dispossess greater and mightier nations than yourselves. (Deuteronomy 11:22~23)

In everyone’s life God tries to help us is “drive out all these nations from before you”. He also said “you will dispossess greater and mightier nations than yourselves.” This is His promise for us. Those nations represent our ego, our big self, our idle fancies and vain imaginations. This is what we fightfor in a spiritual battle. Our heart is like the lands of the nations. It belongs to God. Dispossess the nations means withdraw our heart from foe and let God possess our heart. When the land has been returned, the heart has been restored, then we can inherit the wealth of the land. The wealth which God rewards us is the richness of spiritual life. That is eternal life and the might of the Throne. It is His immeasurable grace.

O My Friend In Word! Ponder awhile. Hast thou ever heard that friend and foe should abide in one heart? Cast out then the stranger, that the Friend may enter His home. (The Hidden Words of Bahá’u’lláh)

The wish which God has for us do we heard it? The love which God has toward us do we understand it?