“He who has faith has ... an inward reservoir of courage, hope, confidence, calmness and assuring trust that all will come out well — even though to the world it may appear to come out most badly."—B.C. Forbes
What comes to mind when we think about the inward life? Maybe it's the idea of monks or nuns living apart from the rest of the world. How about someone sitting with their legs crossed, meditating?
The inward life around here is most commonly represented by simply reflecting on the words of Jesus and how they apply to us today. We might never realize it, but what we do to help us be a better person is a part of the inward life.
It's not scary. When we need to have a far-out experience, all we need to do is look inside ourselves.
Yes, I know we don’t have all the answers, but I also realize God put a lot of good stuff in us. I can hear people objecting by saying we need God. I wholeheartedly agree. All I am saying is we need to get to know ourselves and what we believe.
I used to want to please everybody. Newsflash, it's not going to happen. I am open for armchair quarterbacks to take a shot at me. But they don’t know what is in my heart. You just got a small idea of what is on my mind.
I love it when people read something and then they say, “We need to talk about what is not said.” Yet they don’t want to be held to the same standard. I only have a small space in the paper. If I would write everything I want to say, I would take up the whole paper.
That was just an example of my thought process, and maybe I overanalyze it. To live the inward life, we are going to have unpopular ideas. It is important how we reflect on our own principles and values, not the principles and values of others. We are the only one who has to be around us all the time. If we don’t live our values, then we will never be all that God called us to be.
So how do we go inward? That will look different for different people. I read the Bible and pray, but for others, it may look different — a nice walk to get the blood flowing and space to think. For some, a bike ride works wonders.
There is just something about being surrounded by God's creation that makes a person feel good. I am sure you have heard of feel-good chemicals. When we get our heart rate up, we sometimes can look at something differently and reflect on it with a new perspective.
We tell ourselves not to judge people, but why don’t we apply that to ourselves? We don’t need to micromanage every thought we have. Sometimes we need to let a thought just be. Don’t try to control it. Just see what happens. It might just come and go, or it might open up a new way of how we look at the world.
Kyle Snyder can be emailed at kylesnyder86@yahoo.com.
