Heeding the Clarion Call, Divine Discontent and Searching for the Meaning of Life - Inspiration from Talk to a Pastor Online

High hearts are never long without hearing some new call, some distant clarion of God, even in their dreams; and soon they are observed to break up the camp of ease, and start on some fresh march of faithful service.

And, looking higher still, we find those who never wait till their moral
work accumulates, and who reward resolution with no rest; with whom, therefore, the alternation is instantaneous and constant; who do the good only to see the better, and see the better only to achieve it; who are too meek for transport, too faithful for remorse, too earnest for repose; whose worship is action, and whose action ceaseless aspiration.

J. Martineau


Pastor's comment: There is a term for this wonderful sense of looking for something more to life than the humdrum shallow routine. It is called Divine discontent. Divine, I suppose, because it is the soul's looking for the meaning of life and for its purpose. Perhaps it is given to some of us by God. Like the salmon going upstream which is not content it finds its home, we yearn to find the Father we have never known. We are looking for something, and we don't know exactly what it is--but we know it when we find it.

All explorers and true scientists have this desire for discovery to some extent. But for some of us, it is more than an earthly quest. It is a metaphysical quest.


Christ said that we need this searching nature. "Seek and ye shall find," said the Messiah. But not many people seek or search for Truth. They get pulled into the comfort zone and they remain there because they do not love truth enough to search for it.

But some of us do. And we seek and search, and we are never satisfied until we find the pearl of great price. It begins with searching for the purpose of our existence.


They go from strength to strength.--Psalm 84, verse 7.

First the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the
ear. Mark 4, verse 28.

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!

O. W. HOLMES.