Tuesday, March 19
The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their spouse, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts;
and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Jeremiah 31:31-33
Ask: “Why am I so blessed?”
How does one even begin to let joy point the way toward a particular vocation? For the past several weeks, we’ve been exploring various ways that joy can appear in our lives. By now, you probably have a sense of what joy feels like in your body. Breathe for a moment and focus your attention inward. Sense joy in your body, or bring to mind a time when it was.
When you’ve got that feeling in your body, move into this set of questions proposed by theologian Mary Clark Moschella, who takes special joy in studying joy[1]:
Why me? Why have I been so blessed?
Why have I been given this talent or this love or this bounty?
What responses arise in you? Journal, reflect, pray, or speak with a friend.
[1] Mary Clark Moschella, “Calling and Compassion: Elements of Joy in Lived Practices of Care,” Joy and Human Flourishing, ed. Miroslav Volf and Justin E. Crisp (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2015), 106.