Do I love God, or my own accomplishments?

This is the second in a series of posts about ‘Love’ from the Daily Meditations of Fr. Richard Rohr. In this one he talks about our ego’s, and how they can hinder our spiritual life.

Do I love God, or my own accomplishments?

The ego wants to ensure us that the things we do are all significant and worthy of our attention, that this event will make me important. Our activities become attempts at self validation and little life merit badges. We all enjoy putting another check on our life resume, or even on our spiritual resume.

Much religion uses God to bolster one’s own self-image, I am afraid. True religion would not be attached to self-image at all, but only to God. In fact, the closer you actually get to the Light, the more of your own shadow you see. Maybe that is why a lot of people do not persevere on the journey toward the Lover.

Christian life has little to do with me doing anything right. It has everything to do with falling in love with a Lover who always does everything right. What I love is that Lover and not my own accomplishments; nor am I surprised or unduly humiliated by my own failures. We must come to know who is always the Lover and who is always the beloved.

Adapted from Radical Grace: Daily Meditations, p. 23, day 22

Mantra:
Be in love

One thing I particularly like about these meditations from Fr. Richard Rohr, is the way they get me to think about myself in a different light. As I was reading this one, my ‘ego’ was telling me that perhaps I’m doing okay. That was, until I came to the second half of the penultimate sentence: “nor am I surprised or unduly humiliated by my own failures”. Ouch! I’m not surprised that I fail, but I do feel unduly humiliated when I do so. And I can see that that isn’t good. Something else for me to pray about, and to work on, methinks.

The email this came from was one of Fr. Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditations. If you would like to subscribe too, and I can recommend them, the website is here: The Center for Action and Contemplation. It won’t cost you anything.