The Pulse

A pulse is the sign of life in all of us. Sometimes it is slow, sometimes rapid, or irregular, or
thready. It is something that is checked by medical personnel, EMT’s, and mom’s. It’s strength
and regularity, or the lack of, is a measurement of our health. You can’t go through a day
without seeing someone on a television program grabbing a wrist or touching the side of a
neck to measure it, or find that it has stopped. As long as your heart beats, you have a pulse.

Writers often talk about the pulse of a nation, a group of people, of the feelings of life around
us. It may be a feeling of pleasure of your surroundings, of excitement during a sporting event,
or of the rising tide of anger of a mob of people.

It has been said that when two people hold hands, their hearts will soon synchronize and beat
the same rhythm. This mysterious merging of the hearts’ rhythms is a sign of the feelings the
two people share with each other, even when unspoken.

If our pulse is a sign of our life, and often with other people, then there should be a pulse that
shows our relationship with God. Where would we find it? On the knees when we kneel to
pray, or, our hands when they are joined together? Perhaps it is in the heart where we have
the love God gives to us and we to him. Wherever it is, or isn’t, we know there has to be a
pulse that shows us the strength of our relationship with him. Is it a strong, steady beat that
tells us that is the nature of our relationship? Or, is it rapid and irregular when we are having
problems in our connection to him. Perhaps it is very weak and almost undetectable when we
have turned our backs to him and followed a wrong path. The one thing it will never be in this
life is totally gone. Regardless of how bad a connection we have, it will never not be there.
God is always there to give us his own version of CPR to bring us back to life with him. Of
course, our pulse with him will be strongest when we leave this mortal life behind and spend
eternity with him in his home.

Just as we can put our fingers on our wrist or neck to check our physical pulse, so too can we
take our spiritual pulse. It is merely connecting with God and sensing the strength of that
connection. Does it feel strong and alive and full? Is it mediocre and dull, kind of just “there”?
Or is it weak, distant, almost undetectable? God is constant. He never changes. He can fill
our lives with almost more than we can hold or stand. So, if God is a constant, then it must be
us who creates the different pulses, be they strong, or medium or weak.

What is your Godly pulse? Which is it, the strong, the medium, or the weak? How do you
want it to be? YOU have the control. How close or distant you are is all up to you. You know
what to do, what it takes to either maintain the level you have now or change it. Do you want
the closest relationship, where the pulse is the strongest? Then you must be doing all of the
things he has asked of you, and will continue to ask. Is your pulse less than full? Then you
know what you need to do, don’t you? If you need help to focus, to get there, then there is
help, in the form of a minister, priest, or other spiritual leader. If you aren’t where you want to
be, it is only because you have chosen to be where you are today. Make a new choice. You
have that control.