Daily writing prompt

How do you plan your goals?

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People say, “Listen to your heart,” and “To your own heart be true.” However, many different voices speak in my heart. Some offer good and true advice. Others offer bad and deceptive guidance. My goal is to listen to and be led by one particular voice in my heart — the music of God’s voice.

A saint is someone who is continually led by God’s Spirit. (To be led by the Spirit is to tune your heart to the music of God’s voice and move in step with it.) A saint overflows with the joy, the fruit, and the gifts of the Spirit.

The Orthodox and Catholic churches call certain dead Christians saints, but the Bible says that all Christians are called to be saints–God’s holy people. (Romans 1:7) When a saint goes marching into a place, he or she carries the actual presence of “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Colossians 1:27) A saint’s message isn’t presented with mere human wisdom but with demonstrations of the Spirit’s presence and power that radiate God’s supernatural revelation. (1 Corinthians 2:4-10) Saints are ordinary people who follow and obey the risen Jesus with their whole heart.

Instead of praying and talking to the official church saints, I let the saints talk to me. I’ve read hundreds of books by holy and devoted Christ-followers (Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant) from across the centuries. I love to let the saints talk to me, however, I always check what they say with the Bible.

“In truth, all human beings are called to be saints.” –William Stringfellow

“We can, if we will, become a saint, for God will never refuse to help us to do so.” –John Vianney

“Saints live not after the fashion of the world. The dignity of the saints is so great because they are not of this world, but ‘of the household of God.’” –St. Thomas Aquinas

“Be often reading the lives of the saints for inspiration and instruction.” –Philip Neri

“Never say, ‘What great things the saints do!’ but ‘What great things God does in His saints!’” –Philip Neri

“Maybe more than anything else, to be a saint is to know joy. Not happiness that comes and goes with the moments that occasion it, but joy that is always there like an underground spring no matter how dark and terrible the night. To be a saint is to be a little out of one’s mind, which is a very good thing to be a little out of from time to time. It is to live a life that is always giving itself away and yet is always full.” –Frederick Buechner

“Sanctify yourself and you will sanctify society.” –Francis of Assisi

Here’s a poem that came to me:

There’s more to see than
Religious routine.
We need a new scene.
I want to see Christ
Actively working
Among His people
To make our hearts clean
And cause us to lean
And to rely on
His presence unseen.