Preparing The Guest Room For God

Preparing the Guest Room

for God

For a little over a year now, every single day, I have meditated.

Sometimes it’s 5 minutes, sometimes it’s 20, but I can say with conviction that meditation has been become a fixed part of my life.

Meditation can be a squirrely business.

Like all good spiritual practices, just when you think you’ve got it figured out, you realize you have no idea what you’re doing.

I begin my meditation with prayer, and in that prayer I tell my higher power that I am open to any downloads and insights that want to come through in that time.

The other day as I was sitting there, I noticed that a part of me was secretly calling out “Yup! Open for business over here! Any downloads you want to give me God. Anytime. I'm READY. Just lay it on me.”

And I humbly I realized that once again, I had adorably missed the point.

In declaring my readiness, what I was really doing was setting up the expectation that if I was gonna meditate, I had better be getting something out of it.

But making sure divine messages get through exactly when I want them is not my job. My job is just to make sure the guest room is ready.

When a guest is comes to visit, I wash the sheets, elegantly fold the towels, and place fresh flowers on the bedside table in preparation. This ritual is something I have almost total control over. What I do NOT have control over is the timing in which my guest arrives.

And so it is with meditation. In meditation, I am clearing the space in my mind for the divine to enter in its own time. Those insights may happen in the moment of meditation, or later when I’m driving down the highway, scrambling eggs for breakfast or putting rollers in my hair.

Just like guests are more likely to visit when they know there is a place to stay, strokes of divine inspiration are more likely to be heard when the space of quiet has been cleared.

Silent meditation is one of the ways I make space to hear the divine more clearly. Hiking in the woods, dancing, enjoying my body through the senses, are just a few others.

What works for you? I'd love to hear your list in the comments!

With Chocolates on the Pillow,

Mary