“Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Corinthians 3:17).
Freedom for what?
Freedom to receive and give love, to be loved, receive and experience, savor it and love in return. This is what all of us seek, deep down. The only one that can fill and satisfy this deep hunger and thirst is God. The interesting thing is that even though he is infinite, completely self-sufficient, and does not need us at all, he hungers and thirsts for us as well. He reaches out for us, invites us into his eternal embrace to be one with him so that he can be one with us.
Love is a free giving and receiving exchange. Authentic love is not coerced or manipulated. This is true for us and for God. We are to receive his love in his time and on his terms and not our own. For God sees the fullness of who we are as well as our sins, wounds, and weaknesses. He knows what and how much we can receive at any given time. He does not want us to merely exist or survive. God’s greatest joy is to see us fully alive and free to live and experience the life he has given us. But he begins small, where we are, and invites us as a father invites in infant to walk. Encouraging us and there to catch us when we fall.
What wounds this free exchange is when we put ourselves first before God. We make the mistake of Adam and Eve whenever we grasp at what God is willing and seeking to give us freely. We can become impatient, seek control, buy into lies and temptations that appear to be good but in fact are not coming from the love God wants to share with us. When we experience anxieties, fear, pain, and suffering it is a barometer revealing something is off kilter, off center in our lives. In their proper place, these emotions are protective and instructive to help us to avoid that which is not in our best interest or for our highest hope and good and protect us from harm. Even our suffering can be a time of healing in the experience of loss, which is also an expression of love.
The problem arises when we allow our minds to run away with misperceptions and this comes more readily when we place ourselves first instead of trusting in God. When we place our security in the finite and material instead of trusting in God’s eternal care. From seeking stability, in the material and in ourselves and our choices alone, we then want to be in control, we want what we want when we want it, we want to know what’s going on and right now.
These self-centered practices increase our suffering, and since we run from suffering, we seek to be more in control rather than being willing to surrender all to God. “What really hurts is not so much suffering itself as the fear of suffering. If welcomed trustingly and peacefully, suffering makes us grow. It matures and trains us, purifies us, teaches us to love unselfishly, makes us poor in heart, humble, gentle, and compassionates toward our neighbor” (Jacques Philippe).
Jesus is inviting us to let go and loosen our clenched fists and tendencies to grasp. He himself, the Son of God “did not regard equality with God something to be grasped” (See – Philippians 2:6). Instead, he is inviting us to do as he has always done, which is to trust in and receive from God our Father what we most need, his love.
Photo: Evening rosary walk back in December at St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary.
Spiritual Stepping Stones 