God’s Dream for Me

1. PRESENCE OF GOD

• Place yourself in God’s presence: Sit in a comfortable position. Breathe in & out fully and imagine God in front of you, all around you, within you like the air that fills you.
• Centering/Quieting: try your best to be quiet and focus your mind
• Ask for the Grace desired: peace, the gift of prayer, deep listening, letting go, surrender, faith…

2. MEDITATION

• Read the passage below several times. Note any words, images or concepts that strike or challenge you? Stay with the thoughts and ruminate on them; let God’s Spirit guide your thinking, imagining, remembering, etc.
• Notice what feelings emerge within you as you meditate on the passage. Do the feelings lead you to a deeper experience of God/grace? Savor that experience and listen to what God might reveal to you.
• How have you experienced this radical love in the personal relationships and events of your life? Allow them to gently surface in your memory/imagination in the Lord’s presence. What do you see or notice?
• Are there any deeper stirrings within your heart or any meaningful interior movements that you can recognize?

3. COLLOQUY/CONVERSATION

• Enter into an intimate conversation with the Lord.
• End the prayer period with an Our Father, Glory Be, or an expression of gratitude, etc.

“Surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future filled with hope. Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart.” Jer 29:11-13

• What happens within myself when I imagine God’s personal dream for my life?
• What happens inside me when I consider this: “God loves into me unique gifts and special talents and trusts me with God’s dream for my life”?
• What consistently gets me “out of bed in the morning ... breaks my heart or... amazes me with joy and gratitude” as Fr. Arrupe writes (see p. 3)?