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There are certain benefits to looking back--reading old journals, browsing through college yearbooks, and catching up with old friends. They can serve as some sort of reference points, providing us insights on how far we have progressed in our life's journeys.
However, if we find ourselves stuck in the same self-identity crises, same issues, same dramas, same hang ups and attachments, what could our experience be telling us? Could it be that we have wrongfully mistaken complacency with simplicity, lack of genuine concern for acceptance? Have we been absent-mindedly refusing the grace to grow in mind and spirit all these years?
Every encounter in our life bears a trace of the Infinite, the Creator who loves us and always calls us back. Laurence Freeman in Light Within writes, "Every relationship in our life, every turning towards another, is an ever-deepening encounter with the Other in whose image we are made." If we see all experiences in our life - both good and bad - as part of a big plan or a grand scheme of things, then we will be comforted with the knowledge that we are loved. God's ways are truly beyond our understanding as finite beings.
Our encounters should help reveal our authentic selves and bring us closer to our life's purpose. "The deepest encounter is the greatest change and that is undergone in death," says Freeman. This death is our response to Christ's call, "Come, follow me."
Sometimes He calls in the midst of our distractions--enjoying the false security of our jobs and some relationships, the thrill in challenging ourselves to exceed our goals, and the triviality of the friendships and the situations we choose to maintain out of ease and absence of duty. We are often called when we are least ready. To follow Him entails a certain kind of death in us. A death of ourselves. Often, we refuse His invitation because we are not yet ready to give up the comforts of our own complacencies and temporal joys. We become too absorbed in our own godliness, thinking that happiness comes free. As Christians, we learn that real triumph happens after we embrace our own crosses and walk through our calvary, instead of leaving our burdens for others to carry and escaping the hard path, which all of us has been given to take.
One beautiful thing that I have learned about human frailty is that sin is our failure to respond to the call of Christ and to the love of our Creator which He manifests through our encounters.
May we find the courage to be disturbed and to leave behind the worldly entanglements that prevent us from responding to love and growing in spirit.
However, if we find ourselves stuck in the same self-identity crises, same issues, same dramas, same hang ups and attachments, what could our experience be telling us? Could it be that we have wrongfully mistaken complacency with simplicity, lack of genuine concern for acceptance? Have we been absent-mindedly refusing the grace to grow in mind and spirit all these years?
Every encounter in our life bears a trace of the Infinite, the Creator who loves us and always calls us back. Laurence Freeman in Light Within writes, "Every relationship in our life, every turning towards another, is an ever-deepening encounter with the Other in whose image we are made." If we see all experiences in our life - both good and bad - as part of a big plan or a grand scheme of things, then we will be comforted with the knowledge that we are loved. God's ways are truly beyond our understanding as finite beings.
Our encounters should help reveal our authentic selves and bring us closer to our life's purpose. "The deepest encounter is the greatest change and that is undergone in death," says Freeman. This death is our response to Christ's call, "Come, follow me."
Sometimes He calls in the midst of our distractions--enjoying the false security of our jobs and some relationships, the thrill in challenging ourselves to exceed our goals, and the triviality of the friendships and the situations we choose to maintain out of ease and absence of duty. We are often called when we are least ready. To follow Him entails a certain kind of death in us. A death of ourselves. Often, we refuse His invitation because we are not yet ready to give up the comforts of our own complacencies and temporal joys. We become too absorbed in our own godliness, thinking that happiness comes free. As Christians, we learn that real triumph happens after we embrace our own crosses and walk through our calvary, instead of leaving our burdens for others to carry and escaping the hard path, which all of us has been given to take.
One beautiful thing that I have learned about human frailty is that sin is our failure to respond to the call of Christ and to the love of our Creator which He manifests through our encounters.
May we find the courage to be disturbed and to leave behind the worldly entanglements that prevent us from responding to love and growing in spirit.
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