Harassed by life, exhausted, we look about us for
somewhere to be quiet, to be genuine, a place of
refreshment. We yearn to restore our spirits in God,
to simply let go in him and gain new strength to go
on living. But we fail to look for him where he is waiting for us,
where he is to be found: in his Son, who is
his Word. Or else we seek for God because there are
a thousand things we want to ask him, and imagine
that we cannot go on living unless they are answered.
We inundate him with problems, with demands for
information, for clues, for an easier path, forgetting
that in his Word he has given us the solution to every
problem and all the details we are capable of grasping
in this life. We fail to listen where God speaks: where
God’s Word rang out in the world once for all, sufficient for all ages,
inexhaustible. Or else we think that
God’s word has been heard on earth for so long that by
now it is almost used up, that it is about time for some
new word, as if we had the right to demand one. We
fail to see that it is we ourselves who are used up and
alienated, whereas the word resounds with the same
vitality and freshness as ever; it is just as near to us as
it always was. “The word is near you, on your lips and
in your heart” (Rom 10:8)

-Hans Urs von Balthasar