THOUGHTS TOGETHER

OPENNESS TO GOD

According to Thomas H. Green, “Falling in Love with Love is falling for make-believe”. The true object of our love exists only in our imagination. Opening to God as human friend throws a real challenge of honest self-knowledge. Though we cannot see and hear and touch as we can human lover, it worth mentioning that tangibility does not necessarily (married couples). The problem in prayer or in our relation to God is not the visibility of God. Rather, the cost of real self- knowledge is than most of us are willing to pay. We (love to) cling to our illusions, and our ignorance about our real self. Good self-knowledge leads to the experience divine love. While we are always “getting to know ourselves and each other as long as we live, our relationship moves from the head (knowledge) to the heart (experiencing, loving). At this time we seek the joy of being with the one we love rather than insight. We become drawn simply to be present to the Lord in Love to sit before him, to bask in his love.

 Strange as it may sound to a couple on their wedding day, we need the “worse” as much as the “better” in order to make love real (the example of Hosea& job). In the better we learn the joy of loving; in the worse we to love unselfishly. When things are difficult, when friction and personality clashes arise then we learn to love the other for his/her own sake. Not because I feel good about it but because the other’s happiness and well-being are important to me.

Come out of Come out of or comfortable zones. Do not settle for a level of comfortable mediocrity, loving but not too much; giving but only within the comfortable limits you have set for yourselves. Open up yourselves to God; learn to let go and let God. Risk your total honesty with God, for I need, you need, we need to let Him reveal the truth about our relationship with Him even if it is painful, embarrassing, or disgusting. Remember Jesus proclaimed that the truth will set us free if we know it and accept it (cf. John 12:42-43). Do not be like the Pharisees seeking the truth and desiring the freedom of eternal life, and yet cannot risk standing naked before the Lord.

ACCEPTING MY SINFULNESS

All have sinned and fallen short of God’s grace. Man thus constantly stands in need of grace. Our sin has grown into a weaken sense of Truth in us.  We cannot differentiate truth from falsehood, right from wrong, good from bad or evil. Many of us cannot show any remorse for a crime, for a wrong done, or for displeasure caused a friend, simply because they are “normal” for us. But how normal is that normal thing when it hurts?

The realization of our nothingness and sinfulness must not overwhelm us. The realization should rather bring great consolation to us if we really fear the lost of God whom we love. Becoming furious, fixated upon such realization would not do us any good. If we are to grow in love we have to accept the reality of our sinful condition and even come peace about it. Not because we like it but because the Lord accepts and loves us as we are and wishes to purify and transform us. We do not make ourselves worthy of his love by bewailing our; rather he makes us worthy by loving us (Rom 5:8, 10). We are therefore called to daily humble acceptance of our sinfulness and nothingness; and while desiring to grow, we must come to peaceful terms with the reality of who God is and who we are. What we need is “a method of empting and purifying our spiritual faculties of all that are not God. Someone who has fallen in love thinks nothing of living family and friends to be with the beloved. Let us ask God to stretch our hearts, minds, and memories so that they can contain His infinity in order to cooperate freely with His loving initiative.