27 Jun Enthusiasm – June 28 2020
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The word enthusiasm comes from the Greek enthousiasmos meaning, variantly, “possession by a god,” or “having a god within.”
Occasionally life grants us an experience that fills us up, that pulls us out of the mundane and beyond ourselves; where we feel filled up and overflowing and where enthusiasm carries us with no effort on our part.
We can seek this out without having to wait for the world to perfectly align itself for us. The translation from the Greek tells us it’s about God, but more specifically about finding God within.
When we find ourselves pulled into the stream of life and the joy of living, it’s not the thing ‘out there’ that we feel enlivening us, but rather that something within that has been ‘turned on.’ The life force. The God force that insists we get present and offer ourselves to the moment.
The enthusiasm is ours to own. The experience of God within is ours to accept.
I can stop looking for God out there, stop looking for anything out there to fix me or fill me up, and look for God within. Simply by sitting for 20 minutes to begin my day, grounding myself in the inner experience. Then insisting that God fill me up. Possess me. Use me in the way I am meant to be used. Enthusiastically.
Dear God, please use me today in the way I am meant to be used. Enthusiastically.
