I want to have all the things

My heart is divided.

There.  I said it.

I want it all! I want God but I also want myself...

I want all the things!

Maybe you can relate because your heart is probably divided, too.  I think that's the nature and reality of sin in our lives. It divides our hearts away from giving themselves totally over to God.

We have to choose though.  Do we want to love or do we just want ourselves?

If we want to love then we have to allow the Lord to fill and heal our hearts with His Love because we can only love to the extent that we allow ourselves to be loved.

If we want ourselves well... then just follow whatever selfish, unfulfilling desire you happen to have at the present moment.  I promise you'll always be disatisfied!

But love? Love alone satisfies.  It is paradoxical then when a person stops looking at themselves, stops trying to affirm themselves, and stops trying to "grasp" at the fruit in the middle of the garden of Eden, that he will then be in a position to *receive* precisely what is deeply sought after.

To paraphrase a great man who was quoting a great council of the Church, "Only when a man gives himself away in love will he truly find himself." (That's me paraphrasing St. John Paul the Great who cited the Second Vatican Council.)

Love - authentic love - is our truest nature and highest calling.  When we love we are who we are most deeply.  When we give ourselves away we are, mysteriously, most ourselves even though we "lose ourselves" for the sake of the other.

So the question is how we you made to love? Or better, first, how is God trying to love you lately and how do you resist His love? And is your heart still grasping at itself and trying to affirm itself? Can you trust that as soon as you stop grasping at yourself and your own pleasure that then you'll be able to receive the gift God always wanted to give? That gift is true life, abundant life, a life so filled that it bursts at the seams.

How is your heart divided? What does God want to do about that? Will you let Him be Who He is in your life so you can be who you truly are?

-MM