This is going to be a "vulnerable" post. At times, I can be a deeply suspicious, skeptical person. I would be a hypocrite if I were merely suspicious of everyone else, but the fact is that I'm also suspicious of myself. Ever since I was a young boy, I always questioned my motives as much as I did the motives of others. My suspicion of others is one reason I'm so slow to trust and to warm up to people. My suspicion of myself is why I am incredibly slow to act. This is not to say that I am always this way - it's prevalent sometimes more than others.
Tonight I am questioning my motives in life, and I can't seem to stop. Am I genuinely pursuing the path of God? Do I spend so much time looking for faults that I end up getting nothing productive done? Cardinal Newman says that very few people really know who they are. I hope I have understood a little more who I am.
I believe one of the greatest blessings of this semester is this: in my attempt to pray I've become aware of how little I've spoken to God in my life, how little I've listened to Him, how utterly unhappy and fruitless my life is without Him, and how inconsistent my life is. I used to think I was so good at being skeptical that I could smell logical inconsistency hiding under a rock a mile away, and yet, here it is, in my life, right here, and I didn't smell it all that well.
They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. Going their way they went and wept: scattering their seed. But returning, they shall come with joyfulness: bringing their sheaves with them.
3 comments:
I question my motives when I think others may interpret them wrongly. I guess that's the challenge: to see yourself as you really are. Then, you will know your motives.
btw, praying is not easy. God bless you Ross!
I read this and think it applies, maybe not directly, but to something underlying in this and your other more 'vulnerable' posts. Your natural inclination and sensibility, to me, is very Christ-like.
"God could, had he pleased, have been incarnate in a man of iron nerves, the Stoic sort who lets no sigh escape him. Of His great humility He chose to be incarnate in a man of delicate sensibilities, who wept at the grave of Lazarus and sweated blood in Gethsemane. Otherwise we should have missed the great lesson that it is by his will alone that a man is good or bad, and that feelings are not, in themselves, of any importance. We should also have missed the all-important help of knowing that He has faced all that the weakest of us face, has shared not only the strength of our nature but every weakness of it except sin. If He had been incarnate in a man of immense natural courage, that would have been for many of us almost the same as His not being incarnate at all."
Letters of C.S. Lewis, 23rd February 1947
Thanks to both of you! I really like the C.S. Lewis quote, and it really applies to our celebration today!
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