See yourself as God does and share that love

Each morning I awake when our little corner of the world seems at rest.

In that rest I have developed a habit of praying, reading, and contemplation. During contemplation, I occasionally think I catch a little glimpse of God and of how God sees me. It feels like looking back into the innocence of childhood.

Can you remember as a child feeling complete trust? Can you recall a desire for only good in the world and belief that it can be so? With our adult wisdom and battle scars, we kick these kinds of thoughts and desires to the curb and laugh them off as childish naivete rather than childlike innocence. Perhaps we knew better then than we think.

With renewed sense of who I am as God sees me, I believe myself filled with his love and ready to share it with the people around me throughout my day. I resolve to see them as God sees them. I may even pray for the strength to share that love.

And then I begin interacting with others and going about the work of my day. The vision is swiftly lost; my resolutions are broken.

I wonder at how easily, as I busy myself, I leave behind a fleeting connection with the kingdom of heaven. The cares and worries of this world push out good intentions, as the weeds of the parable choked the wheat.

Many of us have the tendency to embrace spiritual consolations or “highs” and in the fervor or peace of the moment resolve to live differently, to sustain the high throughout our lives. We find in such moments that “God is nearer to us than our innermost being” (St. Augustine). Discovering him there, deep within us, our true “faces” are revealed as in a mirror that reflects his perfect light rather than dim natural light that can trick our vision. We see ourselves for who we really are.

But we can so quickly lose this image, separating ourselves from God and thus from our true selves, by simply getting caught up in daily activity. Resolve slips away. It is as St. James wrote: we are like the man who looks in a mirror, then on going away immediately forgets what he looks like.

The alternative to which St. James leads us is perseverance: “But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere ... will be blessed” (James 1:25). But wait, you and I may object: God’s answer to our problem of failing to keep our resolutions is simply not to fail? No, persevering in holiness cannot just mean maintaining perfect purity or righteousness.

When his disciples ask “Then who can be saved?” Jesus doesn’t say, “Well, it’s hard, but ... .” He says it is downright impossible for us. Only for God is this possible (Luke 18:26-27). Perseverance then above all must mean continuing to return, even after failing, to the one who is perfect purity and righteousness itself.

“Be doers of the word,” St. James wrote, “and not merely hearers” like the man who forgets his face (James 1:22). Our problem is not that we aren’t “doers” -- we “do” all day long, often in a kind of frenzy -- but that we are not doers of the word.

What I hear God telling us through his faithful servant, James, is that to be doers of the word we must keep returning to Jesus, the Living Word. May God help us to do so, and to let him fill our lives with faith encouraged by seeing ourselves as he sees us and as he desires us to become.