I love the words of St. Augustine: ‘Our hearts are restless until they rest in God,”
The ultimate purpose for a soul is love. The primary focus of that is to love God with a pure love. Pure love is selfless, only looking at the one being loved. When a soul loves God, the soul will find itself drawn to God for His sake. God is glorious and worthy of our love, loving Him is right and just. When we can love in this way, selflessly and focused only on God’s greatness and beauty, we will discover something else quite glorious. As a result of our pure love of God, we will be filled with a joy so abundant and powerful God’s love becomes our reward and joy. God’s pure love becomes so strong that it fills us with a profound and sincere love for others. And this comes back to God in a pure, joyful love. This is that ‘ring of love’ I talked about in a prior post. At this point, our hearts rest in God.
I realize God’s love for me in that not only did God did have a plan, God has protected me throughout my life, and lead me out of darkness. All this with a singular goal in His mind, He was leading me to himself. His desire to lead me back to Him is totally selfless in love. God knows how restless my heart has been through my life as I searched for joy from one job to another and one ‘toy’ or pleasure to another. Trying to find joy in worldly things never gave me peace. Only when I finally found God did I start to see true peace.
I have fought through the past years to settle into God’s peace. It takes a lot of time and retraining to change decades of wrong thinking. But, God is patient and His love endures through all the challenges I present to Him. He has allowed me to continue to learn and grow with patience. I continue to see to think that if I did things ‘my way’ it would be fine, only to see God has a better way. The lampposts that God has placed in my path to light my way have become strong beacons to show me the right path to travel in life. When I follow His guidance and rest in Him, I see God making straight and level the paths. In no way are these paths easy or even the easiest way to travel in life but I am seeing they are the best ways. Even in the seemingly more difficult road, there is greater reward and joy with Christ.
Think about best paths vs. easiest. The best example I can think of it the Via Delorosa, the path Jesus walked through Jerusalem to Calvary. In human terms, it would have been much simpler for Jesus to call down those legions of angels (Matthew 26:53) and set up His Reign right there in front of everyone. But, the path Jesus walked through the passion and crucifixion was much greater in Divine terms.
Ultimately, loving God with a pure love starts with TRUST. When we trust in God’s presence, trust in the Father’s love, trust in Jesus’ Divine Mercy, trust in the presence and guidance of the Holy Spirit, we can’t help be to grow to pure love in God. And, again, that pure love then translates to our actions and words with our brothers and sisters in Christ. And, the more love we can give back to God.
“O Holy Trinity, Eternal God, my spirit is drowned in Your beauty. The ages are as nothing in Your sight. You are always the same. Oh, how great is Your majesty. Jesus, why do You conceal Your majesty, why have You left Your heavenly throne and dwelt among us? The Lord answered me, My daughter, love has brought Me here, and love keeps Me here. My daughter, if you knew what great merit and reward is earned by one act of pure love for Me, you would die of joy. I am saying this that you may constantly unite yourself with Me through love, for this is the goal of the life of your soul. This act is an act of the will. Know that a pure soul is humble. When you lower and empty yourself before My majesty, I then pursue you with My graces and make use of My omnipotence to exalt you.” Divine Mercy in my soul #576
“Your work is a lamp to my feet and a light on my path” Psalm 119:105