What if everything in the Gospels is true? What if everything that we do truly if our every choice impacts not only ourselves but our friends, family, even people we’ve never met? What if the entirety of our lives on Earth are but an infinitesimal speck next to an eternity that God is constructing for us out of bricks we are creating without ever action? What if the choice between an eternity in Paradise or in Misery is entirely ours to make? A choice between peace, joy and love in a paradise beyond our wildest imaginings, yet containing all that we have ever found joy in, with our Creator – Love Himself – and all those who we’ve ever loved; and the same eternity, but alone, in darkness and bone-shattering sorrow – with full knowledge of the paradise we rejected by our refusal to surrender to Love.
If all of that is true (and it is), it must change us completely.
The Creator of this incredible universe, of which we make up an incomprehenably tiny fraction of a fraction, loves YOU so much that he chose to become one of us, just so that we could snuggle closer to Him? He personally reveals to us the secrets to joy, peace, fulfilment, purpose – and all those eternally, to the nth degree. He adopted us as His children. He ate with us. He laughed with us. He wept with us. Then, so that we would no longer be subject to the horrors we’ve earned by our hate, He surrendered a life full of friends and family He loved, all His favorite places, all the hobbies that brought Him joy, and submitted Himself to the most excruciating, brutal, humiliating, dehumanizing form of torture and execution the world has devised in a long history of obscene cruelty to each other. Then, after 3 days of lying cold and dead in a borrowed tomb, He shattered the chains of death itself by raising Himself from that grave, forever granting us the freedom to choose for ourselves life without end.
Everything He’s ever done has been purely out of love for YOU. Not because he had to, nor for His own glory. For no other reason than this: so you will know how much He loves you, so He can spend all eternity hanging out with you. That is the most enormous public display of affection in history!
So now what??
Now we can choose to blaze our own trail, fight our own battles, be our own person. Or, we can allow ourselves to be consumed by Love. Love for ourselves. Love for our neighbors. Love for our Creator. But we have to remember that love isn’t a feeling. It’s not an adjective; it’s a verb. Love is a decision. To put the stranger I meet before myself. To sacrifices the small pleasures of my life for the good of my neighbor, even (especially) if I can’t stand her. To give gladly without ever counting the cost. To orient my entire being toward compassion, respect, care, honesty, justice. To stand up for the one that’s suffering when everyone else looks away, no matter who or how many turn against me for it. To do what is right, especially when it seems impossibly hard.
It’s a big ask, I know, but I promise you it’s worth it. And I also promise that you won’t have to do it alone. God will give you His strength. Jesus will give you his Heart. The Holy Spirit will give you His wisdom. Mary, our Mother, will defend you, take your hand, and walk with you every step of the way.
If you let me, I’d like to walk with you too.
We can take this journey together.
Whaddaya say?
