Much of my young adult life I confess that I thought of God in a transactional way. If I did certain things or performed a certain way, I would be rewarded in faith. The Catholic faith to which I converted to was rich in prayers, traditions and practices that can feed into this way of thinking. I was like a good Pharisee.
But Christ called me to understand it’s not about performance, it’s about relationship. As an Enneagram 3, it’s not surprising I viewed my spiritual life in this way. Through perseverance and respondingto God’s grace, I came to know true humility and my life became properly ordered. I began down the path of Divine Intimacy.
Today if you are reading this, you have choices to make. Will you strain forward to what lies ahead as St Paul says to the Philippians? Will you press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus? Or will you choose something different? I’m reminded of this question from C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity:
“People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God says, ‘If you keep a lot of rules I’ll reward you, and if you don’t I’ll do the other thing.’ I do not think that is the best way of looking at it. I would much rather say that every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow-creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at this moment is progressing to the one state or the other.” —C. S. Lewis
Smitten With Goodness 