Lectio
“My God, ‘I choose all!’ I don’t want to be a saint by halves, I’m not afraid to suffer for You, I fear only one thing: to keep my own will; so take it, for ‘I choose all’ that You will!”
— St. Thérèse of Lisieux, Story of a Soul
Meditatio
I have a great capacity for over-thinking. Growing up in a household filled with emotional uncertainty, nervous anticipation became a defense mechanism through which I attempted to both find a dubious sense of self-soothing and an unreliable sense of self-protection. Instinctively, I developed a hyper-sensitive awareness of other people’s needs and feelings, and an under-developed awareness of my own. My environment, or rather my response to it and anticipation of it, dictated who I was and I had no real sense of self aside from as a reaction to the emotional input I received, or didn’t.
As I matured and my emotions developed into consciousness, my hyper-sensitivity morphed into a tendency toward over-thinking. Of course, I can only see this now, many decades later, and even so with the blurred vision of inner-subjectivity. For many years, I was convinced that this tendency toward over-thinking was an asset — that it was the attribute that got me ahead and kept me safe. But over time, as with all God-given instincts taken to the extreme that a godless life tends toward, this self-perceived asset began to turn on me — feeding the very wounds it had tried to prevent.
As the world hurt me and I subsequently hurt others, my over-thinking turned to fear, resentment, cynicism, and despair. As a longtime spiritual advisor says, “I’m a terrible predictor of things because all of my predictions are apocalyptic.” My anticipation of the needs of others began eating at me like the worm that does not die — one of Jesus’s images for hell — and I lived in a constant state of fear of what might hurt me or displease others, and how I might be able to prevent that from happening, even if it cost me my own joy and peace. Without God, I made everyone around me my God, while at the same time trying to predict and control everything as if I were also God.
This inner trait was so much a part of who I was that I could neither see past it to the horizon nor imagine my life without it — it had become the center of gravity around which my inner world spun out of control. That is, until it stopped working — until it began causing me and those around me more pain than benefit, and honestly, probably much more before then. But God wastes nothing. He wastes neither our love and faithfulness, nor our sin and brokenness. And so, as I made my slow walk toward and with Christ, I began to change. In fact, I didn’t know how much until I received a message from a friend at 4 o’clock one morning that woke this old self within me, and I lay awake worrying, anticipating, and over-thinking a situation which, in my bed while everyone else was sleeping, I not only had no control over, but also did not even have the full context of.
And upon the altar of my insomnia, as I lay there burning in a vain sacrifice to my own self-centered fear, by grace the thought came to me, “This is not who I want to be anymore,” and my mind began to slowly turn to God. It’s a lot to ask of oneself to turn away from nearly fifty years’ worth of ingrained mental and emotional habits. In fact, it’s too much to ask of oneself. But it is not too much for God, and, upon this altar, in his loving presence, the self-inflicted fires of hell became, as in Gethsemane, an angel from heaven soothing my dis-ease, comforting my unrest, and granting me the peace of the Lord as his beloved child in whom he is well pleased, so that I may drink of the cup of letting go.
As with so many of my inner possessions, I stood at a crossroads forced to answer the Lord’s question, “Do you want to give it all away and follow me, or do you want to go away from here grieving and clinging to what you now possess?” And the honest answer is that I want to want to let it all go. I want to want to choose all of him and none of me. But even for this I need the Lord to help me. For without him I can do nothing, but with him all things are possible. I am willing to be willing, and that, I have found through the Lord’s faithful grace and mercy, is quite enough willingness to turn away from not-God toward Love.
Oratio
Why do I burn me so
as if I could earn your love
through atonement
unasked for
a false sacrifice
from self toward self
leaving you
at the bottom of the mountain
as I climb
with my sins on my back
to pay for my sins
with the greatest sin of all
a self-made Sisyphus
a self-punished Prometheus
a self
a self
but you meet me at the top
you meet me at the bottom
with love
to take it all away
Contemplatio
What inner possession are you being asked to lay down today — and are you willing to be willing?
Related Scripture
“As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.’ He said to him, ‘Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.’ Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.”
— The Gospel of Mark 10:17–22 (NRSVCE)
For Further Reading
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like Letting Go of Worry: Throwing Ourselves into the Ocean of God’s Goodness, which explores Jesus’s invitation to release anxiety and trust in grace — throwing ourselves into the boundless ocean of God’s goodness that was always waiting for us.
Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity.
Wrestling With God.
Returning To Love.
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