We must want what is good with all of our hearts. Like our Lord who “for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross,” we must be moved primarily by joy and hope. The prospect of one day seeing God’s face must be the main part of our strength.
Just as surely as any work of art ever revealed the heart of the artist, God’s creative work tells us that He is a God of love. A world like the one we live in could not have been made by a God who did not take delight in beauty and joy.
Let us not trifle with our responsibilities, but let us also not forget the manifold goodnesses of God that have made us want to accept those responsibilities. When the final tally is made, our labor will matter little if it was not a labor of love.
Honesty about our yearnings and our guilt is not easy. But the good news is that it leads to an appreciation of grace in which God can save us. Hope can only be ours when we admit that our hearts will never be completely healed in this world.
The very worst disadvantage of the cluttered life is that being at peace and growing in our relationship with God become almost impossible. Perhaps there are a few who could manage such a juggling act, but not many of us can do so.
Both the ability to look backward and to look forward have the potential for great harm if they are not managed wisely. We can only do with the present moment what God would want us to do if we hold to a productive view of the past and the future.
For every human being there is at least someone whose acceptance it is important for that person to have. And the difficult question is this: what if doing God’s will does not result in that someone’s acceptance and approval? Will we obey anyway?
If our relationship with God is based upon love, we can ill afford to let self-centered (though we would simply call them “practical”) motives enter in. Our enjoyment of God cannot depend on whether some desired payoff is being received from Him.
How much risk are we willing to take in order to obey God, particularly in situations where Hiss instructions go against our instincts or our preferences? Real trust requires that we cling to God alone and let go of any other safety or security.
The surest way to grow in our love for God is to meditate on the depth of His love for us. If we have even the smallest fraction of the love for our Lord that He has shown toward us, we will not love Him with anything less than all of our hearts.
