Ignored by God

Many people tell me: “I often feel that I am ignored by God.Why is it so hard to establish a dialogue with the Divine?”

On one hand we know that it is important to seek God.
On the other hand, life distances us from Him/Her – because we feel ignored by the Divine, or else because we are busy with our daily life.
This makes us feel very guilty: either we feel that we are renouncing life too much because of God, or else we feel that we are renouncing God too much because of life.
This apparent double law is a fantasy: God is in life, and life is in God.
If we manage to penetrate the sacred harmony of our daily existence, we shall always be on the right road, because our daily tasks are also our divine tasks.

When you feel this, just recite in the silence of your heart a beautiful prayer by Thomas Merton:

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going,
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.

Nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.

I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it.

I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

[I took it from Paulo Coelho's blog]