For the Seekers
"I know there's something else out there for me... I just haven't found it..."
"I love to read up on self-help, motivation, inspiration, and success... but the good feelings I have while reading these books seems to always fade after I'm done with them for a while..."
You are not alone; not alone in your quest for the key to life, and you are not alone in that nagging feeling creeping more and more into your conscience that whispers "This is fruitless. Something radical must change in your approach."
That voice is God.He is nudging you; nudging you in the hopes that He will not have to one day knock you to your knees. He created you, awaits your every move with bated breath, and has every hair on your head numbered. He knows full well that in Himself alone is the answer you seek, and yet for now He must watch in agony as you, His beloved child, pass your days pouring over an endless stream of self-help bestsellers published by other straying children of His who, in the unabashed pursuit of money and prestige, pretend to know His creatures better than He does.
But the first step in self-help is self-forgetfulness. What is a more joyous earthly thing than falling in love? In it one's gaze is fixated upon another, and the lover's heart is thereby moved to love and serve the beloved. The good of the self takes second place, while the self-concerns vanish and are replaced with the contemplation of the beauty of the other. No earthly good comes close, but, in that beautiful paradox God has ordained to permeate every level of His creation, it only happens when the concern for one's self is annihilated.
What we fall into easily enough (and, sadly, out of) in the natural realm, we must seek out with all our might in the supernatural realm. He is the Hound of Heaven, and it is He Who seeks us out, indeed. But this does not excuse us of our duty to do our part; to turn to Him and walk toward Him as the bridegroom of our soul. And now we have come to the crux of the matter: your soul demands espousal - espousal to its Creator. Feed it with less; with self-help gurus, diet/fitness regimens, 12-step programs; and it will cry out in misery as would Juliet deprived of her Romeo.
Do not do any longer to God what a faithless fiancée does to her betrothed as she still goes on dates with one man, then another, excruciatingly delaying the true marriage to her one and only spouse, as he looks on in agony.