“Our true worth does not consist in what human beings think of us. What we really are consists in what God knows us to be.” St. John Berchmans
My life and yours is a sacramental - an exterior sign of an interior reality. What is that interior reality you ask? My identity from which flows the purpose of my existence.
Identity has been the key theme of this blog series: Made to Exist, The Power of Agency, Made for Mission, Destined for Happiness and now, Worthy of Love. These are the truths of our make-up. This is how I have been made in His image, after His likeness and for His glory.
Your existence is an expression of love. You were loved into being. You exist because of the utter gratuitous love of God. You did not have to be here but you are. So why are you here?
To return to Him who made you, simple as that. The only thing is that it got really complicated to do just that because of The Fall. Human beings initially walked with God, existed with Him, looked upon Him face to face in the garden. But now His face is hidden from us. We easily fall into sin and are pulled toward it because of concupiscence. Life can feel very heavy and hard, but there is a secret to making the pursuit of returning to the Heart of the Trinity easy and light - that secret is grace.
God wants YOU and He gives you grace to get there. Not to be his servant or because He wants His property returned to Him. No. He wants YOU because like anyone in love with another, He hungers for your “Yes” to His request to return the love He has for you. You were always meant to exist close to His heart, but sin messed up this plan. Like family, He knows someone is missing when you are absent from His house. You are essentially wrenched out of His arms when you were born because we come into a fallen world. He longs to hold you again. Your continued existence is an expression of His constant recalling to mind His love for you - He Loves You.
Whether or not you are worthy of love is not a question God asks. It is the definitive underpinning to your creation. You exist because He loves you and your entire life is spent in His pursuit of you, hoping against hope that you respond in powerful reciprocation.
What does God know us to be? How does He see you and me? As an expression of Himself. He sees us as good, as beautiful, as loveable, as desirable…He sees us as His own.
The invitation is to see yourself as one of His own, to do the work to clear up and clarify your wounded perceptions of yourself. This is done with personal work, with prayer, with the sacraments, with coaching, with counseling, with any and all the above. Take your pick or do them all, and get to work, and from that work you will come to know that you are good, that you matter, and that you are enough.
“Act and He will act. Work and He will work.”
Joan of Arc