Our thoughts and our feelings make up a very big part of who we are. Our family members, how and where we grow up and our surroundings, make the picture complete. These thoughts might have us wondering if we have any choice to choose what is right or wrong, or are we simply programmed without any free will.
Rabbi Nachman teaches us that the most important thing we can do in serving Hashem is our desire, our wanting to do good. I started this article by saying that our thoughts and feelings play a very important role in who we are. However not always are we physically or emotionally able to behave in the right way. Here is where our desire comes into play. When we are down and broken or even just having a bad day our minds and our hearts may not be in the mood to do the right thing. That is precisely when we should turn to Hashem and say, Dear Father in Heaven I’m not having a good day, week, month. You know that I love you and want to serve you to the best of my ability. I want to be sweet to my wife and nice to my children. I want to understand my neighbor and judge him favorably. I want to say Tehillim with enthusiasm and I would like to only have gratitude for everything you do for me. But I feel the I’m just not able to be so nice and good like you expect me to be, right now. Yet I do have a great desire to be upstanding and honest and grateful. I want you to know that from the depths of my soul I want to serve you and do what is right. Please G-d help me to get there.
Often we feel that the days just pass by and we are missing our purpose in life. We feel as if we are marching in the same square over and over again without getting anywhere. By our desire to be closer to our creator and to have these daily talks with Him, we can be sure that our time here on earth won’t be in vain. If we reach out to Him daily we will feel connected to Him on a personal level. It will take us where our prayers said by rote from our prayer books, might not. And we can talk to Hashem in whatever language we feel comfortable in. My grandmother, Irene Klass used to stand at her patio door every morning after she finished davening, and talk to Hashem in a very personal way. I can still picture her with her eyes heavenward talking very quietly to the one above.
If your child came to you each day and spoke to you from a humble and personal place, you would hug him and do everything that was in your power to help him reach his goals. Now imagine that the parent here is G-d who is all encompassing and able to help everyone of us. And His help is especially necessary in spiritual matters which are very hard to achieve.
If we will only remember to call upon Hashem and show him our desire to be the person we were meant to be, we will be ensuring our path to happiness and real success in this world and the next.