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WHEN YOU GO TO DISCERN AN ISSUE, REMEMBER THAT YOU CAN'T TRUST YOUR HEART UNLESS YOU HAVE HARMONY INSIDE

Everyone talks about peace -- "Do what gives you peace," "Wait until you feel peace" -- but what brings peace? We always hear about it: peace in the soul, in the seat of the heart. We all yearn for it. Jesus said, "My peace I give you." It's ours for the taking.

But how do we obtain it and keep it? How do we maintain it? Is there a secret to deep inner tranquility?

And what about discerning issues in our lives -- difficult ones?

How do we know which "prompt" -- what direction -- comes from God?

Here we'll turn to Vicka Ivankovic Mijatovic of Hercegovina, who with the death of Maria Esperanza is arguably the world's foremost mystic, at least one of them, a woman of many gifts: healing, spiritual insights.

"You have to consider God's Will first if you want to have this feeling of peace in your heart and inner security," she says. "You can't trust your feelings, if you do not have inner harmony.

"Strive first to love and be happy with yourself.

"When something comes from God, you have great joy, a great peace and harmony. When you feel fear, confusion, and anguish, it comes from the enemy. If your project is God's Will, you'll have problems, sure, but He'll make your path smooth. When you do God's Will, He gives you everything you need, and problems and hurdles end up disappearing."

They dissolve.

Sometimes, she says, it takes a while. But in the end, if you wait on Him, they vanish. Take one step at a time. Few things occur overnight, at least not profound things. Day in and day out, learn to "listen" to God's Will and He will place what she calls "a sign" in your heart.

If there is delay, sometimes, too, the Lord tests us to see how much we really want to do His bidding (and how much we want what we request). You may struggle with attractive alternatives. There may be diversions from the world -- and the enemy.

But prayer answers all. Enough prayer clears the air and leads to the correct decision, to orchestration of notions, to harmony. Fasting helps.

God gave us free will to choose His Will. He doesn't want to force us into anything. When ours coincides with His, there is power. He expects us to fail, to make some mistakes, to make the wrong choice -- but He also expects us to pick ourselves up by the bootstraps and proceed. "As long as we show genuine efforts to follow Him, God will help us," said Vicka (in an excellent book called The Hidden Child of Medjugorje).

When a sign comes -- a real one -- you know it, she says. It's not contrived. It's not forced from your will. It is not wishful thinking. You must do and go where your heart in selfless prayer invoking His Will tells you -- especially prayer early in the morning; this is a splendid time to discern. The important thing, said this mystic, is to move in peace "and the way God is showing you in your heart."

You need no fortuneteller. Your heart knows how to answer what you need to learn more than any person could tell you: first and foremost, God communicates what pertains to you directly to you. In prayer we develop the skills to hear and feel it.

The key is to move in peace and clear the heart of debris. Here we come to repentance.

Repentance prepares a place for God in our hearts.

Repent of obvious sins but also repent for ignoring responsibilities He may have given you. In prayer you will know these! There may be many hidden things you need to acknowledge, to repent.

The heart must be clear. We can be tripped up by many things. We can be tripped up by pride. We can be tripped up by negativity, which hardens the heart -- makes it difficult to feel. If we can't feel our hearts, how can we tell what the heart is saying -- what God is speaking through our hearts? This is the month of the Sacred Heart. We can implore His Heart to form ours!

He leads us always on pathways that provide the opportunity to grow in understanding, knowledge, wisdom, and love. This is another tool in discerning.

What is "harmony"? It is the coordination of all that goes on within us; it is orchestration; it is taking various sounds and noise inside and making music out of them -- praise music.

This is what you listen for, for this is the music of Heaven.

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