In his Letter to the Romans, Paul has a marvelous line: 'where sin increased, grace abounded all the more' (Romans 5:20). -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," December 27, 2017
Recently I read that "our inner attitudes and states are the real sources of our problems, and we need to root out the problems at that level." I am convinced that is the source of all our woes, our inner, not our outer.
Since our outer behavior is 100 percent controlled by our inner thoughts and attitudes, if we upgrade our attitude, we'll upgrade our problem. The big "Yes, but..." is, relying on our self-will or want to alone, we cannot upgrade our thoughts, much less our attitude. We can start thinking prettier or loftier thoughts, but without a decision to seek higher help, we usually never get far beyond the start part.
According to me, in trying to live a spiritually based life, our problem is "trying." Reread Paul's line, where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. It is not that sin increases so we must try to get grace to come fix it, or pray for God to work miracles...it is not on us.
Ours is to make our self fit to be of maximum service to God and to others. Even then God and grace do the heavy lifting. We aim our self in the right direction, slap our ego upside the head as needed, and pray our thank you without ceasing.
If the only prayer you say in your life is thank you, that would suffice. -- Meister Eckhart
Thank you.
No comments:
Post a Comment