Hearing with the Heart
Several times each year, I pause and listen—to the birds, to the wind, to the questions that are bubbling up from deep within. I listen for a sense of direction as I contemplate the months ahead. What is next? What is mine to do? I believe the voice of God lives within each of us, nudging and quiet, gently persistent, always calling. The challenge is not God’s silence—it’s my willingness to slow down and pay attention.
Most days, my journaling includes the question: What do I want? But an even deeper question is assumed and often explicitly follows: How does what I want align with God’s hopes and dreams for me? Listening with the heart requires that kind of honesty and spaciousness.
If you’ve joined one of my retreats or coaching cohorts, you may remember James Clear’s insight in Atomic Habits: “You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results.” He reminds us that small, consistent adjustments—not dramatic overhauls—shape our lives. Like a plane shifting its course by just a few degrees, seemingly minor changes can lead to an entirely different destination.
This, I believe, is the heart of discernment.
In Hearing with the Heart, Debra Farrington defines discernment as “separating apart from all the options before us those that seem uniquely suited to us.” That kind of clarity doesn’t come from pressure or striving—it emerges from presence and trust. Discernment is not reserved for the spiritually elite; it’s found in the small, faithful steps we take each day.
Farrington echoes Marjorie Suchocki’s metaphor: God is like water. Water finds every crack, moves around every obstacle, and wears down resistance—not by force, but by persistence.
The Desert Father Abba Poemen used the same image: “The nature of water is soft, and the nature of stone is hard; but if a bottle is hung above the stone, allowing water to fall drop by drop, it wears away the stone. So it is with the word of God: it is soft, and our heart is hard, but the one who hears the word of God often opens their heart to the love of God.”
Discernment is often more like water than fire—not a blazing answer, but a gradual softening. A quiet turning. The practices we return to—silence, reflection, rest, paying attention—are forming us, slowly but surely.
So I invite you:
Pause. Listen. Ask with intention: Is my trajectory aligned with God’s desire for my life?
You don’t need to overhaul everything. Just take a breath.
Notice what’s stirring.
Let the soft water of God’s presence keep flowing through the cracks.
Your next small step matters.
Walking with you,
Vicki