Lectio
“Dear spiritual friend in God, examine your life. Pay careful attention to the way you live out your calling. With all your heart, thank God for your blessings, and his grace will help you stand strong in the face of subtle attacks from within and without, until you win the everlasting crown of life. Amen.”
— Anonymous, The Cloud of Unknowing
Meditatio
As much as the religious life — the Christian life — calls us to teach, to spread the Gospel, and to make disciples of all nations, to be fishers of men and women for the Lord, it also calls us to retreat, to reflect, and to examine ourselves in the light of Christ lest, in the activeness of our lives, we break from the better part. This was the pattern of Jesus’s own ministry. For every time we read of him teaching, healing, and drawing others to the Father through his words and his witness, we also read of him retreating from the crowds to be alone in prayer with the Father who gave him his strength, his wisdom, and his purpose.
Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living. That is, a life fueled only by superficial want and whim, without stopping to consider why or what for, will ultimately lack meaning and lead to depression and dissatisfaction. But the Christian life asks more of us than mere self-examination for the sake of self-examination. It teaches us that meaning must be sourced from and rooted in something greater than ourselves — from and in some One greater than ourselves.
And so we are called, as Christians, to examine our hearts for all that is not good and holy — for all that is not love. And since God is the source of all that is good and holy — the source of all love — we are called, therefore, to examine our hearts for all that is not God — for all that is not the love of the Father, poured out in the Son, alive in us through the Spirit. But as Christians we know that we cannot do this without God — without Christ through whom we come to the Father, and without the Spirit within us, without whom we are destined to forever choose not-God — to choose false idols, either inherited, given by the world, or self-made.
But with God all things are possible (Matthew 19:26). For with God even temptations and spiritual attacks become an opportunity for his glory, for his grace, and for his faithfulness. With God even our suffering is transformed into love through love. And with God even death becomes a welcome friend — for death with God, in and through Christ, is not the end of joy and the beginning of suffering, but the beginning of joy and the end of suffering for all of eternity. We must, therefore, turn away from not-God, confess our not-God desires and the ways we have yielded to not-God temptations, and turn our inner gaze to the one true God who invites us into love with him now and forever.
This means reflection and self-examination, but not merely so that our life is worth living, but so that our death is worth dying. So that our wills, words, and deeds align with Christ, and when they don’t, so that we can hear the Spirit’s loving correction — and repent, asking forgiveness and for the grace to change.
To examine our hearts is to examine our calling — to ask whether the way we live reflects the One to whom we belong. And in that asking, gratitude becomes not a feeling but a practice: a daily return to the One from whom all blessing flows, saying many times throughout the day, “Thy will, not mine, be done. Amen.”
Oratio
Call me Lord
to your side
why must I wait
why must I suffer here
with the choices I
and others
make
take me to my seat
by your side
unearned
undeserved
but I pray
oh how I pray
that I leave here
saying yes
to your invitation
Contemplatio
What false idol — inherited, given by the world, or self-made — is most quietly competing for the place in your heart that belongs to God alone?
Related Scripture
“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
— Psalm 139:23-24 (NRSVCE)
For Further Reading
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like All Manner of Not-God: On Sabbath, Restlessness, and the Soul’s Hunger for God, which explores the not-God places we reach for when our longing becomes too much to bear — and what it means to wait for a God we cannot summon and cannot stop seeking.
Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity.
Wrestling With God.
Returning To Love.
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