Form My Heart

At every moment of my life I have two options. If I allow it, God will form my heart more and more in the image of his Son. I will act in faith to let God lead me into an unknown place, a place that I cannot know and cannot guarantee I will fully understand or enjoy. Like the one who is brought out of a cave into the light of the sun, I may be dazzled and disoriented by the place where God leads me. I may wish to return to my darkness, the place where I felt safe and at home. But I will remain in my darkness, my limited life, afraid of the life that God wants to show me if I but allow it.

In every conversation, every opportunity to “turn together” (cum-vertere) with an other, I can listen to the voice of God urging me to trust him. God is telling me that there is more truth to learn if I but relinquish my grasp on a partial truth, a truth circumscribed by my small self.

God has created me for a purpose and will at every moment of my life seek to lead me toward it. I must do my best to remove the obstacles to his gentle urging, reaching out in faith in imitation of Jesus. I may reach a moment of crisis, as Jesus did, a moment of sheer terror in trusting God. I may find myself on the path of suffering, like Jesus. And I may even give my life in trusting this God, knowing full well that he is so much greater than suffering or death. Jesus shows me that nothing that life throws at me can compare with what God wants to bring forth from my life. He will bring to fruition what he has started. He has clothed me in beauty and goodness, capable of deep and lasting love, and I will delight in it if I but allow him to form me.