You are constantly facing choices. The question is whether you choose for God or for your own doubting self. You know what the right choice is, but your emotions, passions, and feelings keep suggesting you choose the self-rejecting way.
The root choice is to trust at all times that God is with you and will give you what you most need… God says to you, I love you. I am with you. I want to see you come closer to me and experience the joy and peace of my presence. I want to give you a new heart and a new spirit. I want you to speak with my mouth, see with my eyes, hear with my ears, touch with my hands. All that is mine is yours. Just trust me and let me be your God.
This is the voice to listen to. And that listening requires a real choice, not just once in a while but every moment of every day and night. It is you who decides what you think, say, and do. You can think yourself into a depression, you can talk yourself into low self-esteem, you can act in a self-rejecting way. But you always have a choice to think, speak, and act in the name of God and so move toward the Light, the Truth, and the Life.
--Henri Nouwen
Image source: Crijn Hendricksz Volmarijn (ca. 1604-1645), Christ Instructing Nicodemus, http://www.patrickcomerford.com/2014/03/art-for-lent-12-christ-instructing_16.html
Quotation source
Quotation source
No comments:
Post a Comment