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Acknowledge the Lord in all your ways and He will direct your path.      Prov. 3:6

The trouble with our thoughts is that, for the most part, they presume to operate independently of God.  And the countless speculations and often short-sighted conclusions they reach on important matters related to self, to others, to life and to God often hinder us from learning directly at the feet of Christ.   Paul urged the Corinthians to “take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ.” (2Cor. 10:5).  It implies that we are to bring all things that take place within us into relationship with God.  And this includes all the deliberations that go on in our mind.

We get into trouble whenever we venture too far in our thinking without Christ.  All on our own, we reach some conclusion on a matter of importance.  We then have to live with whatever we believe, even if it is false, until God shows us otherwise.  When lies or half-truths get imbedded in our thinking we are most impaired in our spiritual direction.  Without even realizing it, we are operating from faulty premises.

It takes a lot more time to undo a lie in our thinking than to be patient beforehand with the conclusions we reach.  Better to allow our thoughts to remain uncertain for as long as possible than to prematurely bring our deliberations to a closure.  Such a prayerful approach requires faith though, and the ability to not let our anxious concerns regarding the unknown overly dictate our conclusions.

We should be especially careful when this applies to how we think about ourselves.  Without God, we can never know ourselves as we should.  Better to take all our opinions, speculations and analysis to Christ.  Ask the Lord what He thinks of these matters.  Do you feel that you need to change?  Ask God about this before you jump to any conclusions. Wait, watch and pray as the topic evolves in your spirit.  Rather than opting for any of the self-saving agendas that, on our own, we prescribe for our lives, take it instead to the Lord in prayer.  Are you concerned about this or that matter?  Talk to God about it rather than obsessing about life on your own.

Our thoughts might well contain important data but we should never consider them exclusively on their own.  We are wise to hold onto our conclusions lightly until we’ve verified them with God—to simply take the time to find out what Jesus has to say about what we are thinking.  Ask the Lord what He thinks about this or that matter.  He will either confirm our thoughts or else show us other ways to understand our situation.

As the book of Proverbs so plainly counsels us, we should always be wary of leaning overly to our own understanding.   By simply acknowledging the Lord in all our ways we will walk a very different path than the one that we would otherwise define for ourselves.

What a Friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear.
What a privilege to carry, ev’rything to God in Prayer.
O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry, ev’rything to God in Prayer.

Joseph Medlicott Scriven
1819-1886

Whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.  2Cor. 3:16

Science and Scripture offer hints that our lives, as well as God’s, are both closely related to the nature of light.  The apostle John tells us plainly that “God is light.” (1 Jn 1:5) and that Jesus is “the light that gives light to every person born” (Jn. 1:9).  Paul, as well, teaches that “God is immortal and lives in unapproachable light” (1Tim. 6:16). These are to be understood as theological principles much more than poetry.

We too are often described in terms of light.  Jesus tells us, for instance, that we are lights set on a hill for all to see (Mt. 5:14).  But Scripture also teaches us that the light we have is not our own (2Cor. 3:9).  The nature of our relationship to God is more like that of the moon to the sun.  God is light and we, made in the image of God, mirror that light.  Our light is simply a reflected light.

But there are many ways that we hinder the reflection of God in us.  Like a circus mirror, we often distort God’s light in our attempts to manipulate it.  We try to harness it to our advantage or to redirect it according to what we wish to highlight or conceal of ourselves.  Perhaps we hide ourselves from God’s light as Adam and Eve did.  Light, after all, exposes truth and we are not always open to what it might reveal.  And so we cover our mirror with fig leaves so that it no longer reflects God’s light as fully as it should.

For many such reasons we find veils over our hearts that diminish the light, and therefore diminish the truth of our lives.  And unfortunately, there is nothing that we can do about these veils.  Nothing, that is, except come to God for healing.  As Paul makes clear, whenever a person turns to the Lord the veil is taken away.  This is how God restores His image in us.

The spiritual life is a matter of receiving God’s light as fully as possible and reflecting it back to God, like a polished mirror, as purely as possible.  No manipulation, no redirection, no smudges, no self-absorption—just a true reflection of who God is in us.  This is what Jesus demonstrated at His transfiguration —the light of God, perfectly reflected in human form.  Jesus’ transfiguration, in some ways, also foreshadows our own transfiguration

As God’s light shines on us, what does it mean for us to faithfully reflect it?  What is required of us in order to do so more fully?  The answers to these questions represent the spiritual direction of our own transfiguration.  In this, we have opportunity to participate, as Moses did, by simply gazing more fully into God’s face.  As we do so, Paul assures us that the veil will become thinner, less opaque.  And we will return from such encounters with faces that more fully reflect God’s glory.

If your eye be single, your whole body be full of light.
Mat. 6:22

Each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honourable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God;  1Thes. 4:4-5

How often in the day do we push ourselves to be somewhere just ahead of where we actually are?  Maybe it’s a deadline, or an urgent need that creates an imperative in us for its fulfillment.  Or perhaps it’s just the tedium of “what is” that makes us want to rush ahead to be somewhere other than where we actually are.  Regardless of the reasons, whenever this mode overly defines our lifestyle the result is always the same—we end up losing touch with our souls.

Often, when I am trying to herd my family out the door to get somewhere, I will catch myself moving ahead to the next position I want them to be, perhaps standing at the doorway with my keys in hand, hoping that this might speed them up a bit.  How is this similar to the ways we often rush ahead of ourselves, as if to force us to pick up the pace?   And how does our refusal to accept or wait for ourselves contribute to feeling separated from our souls?

Feeling disjointed has a lot to do with the inner pace we set for ourselves in the course of our day.   This includes the many ways we overstep the truth of “what is” in favour of our projected ideals of what we wish it were.  “In patience,” we are told, “you shall possess your souls” (Luke 21:19 KJV).  St. Frances de Sales, a 16th cent. spiritual director, wrote similarly that, “to possess fully our souls is the effect of patience, made more perfect as it is less mixed with disquiet and eagerness.”

Peace and patience integrate us towards wholeness.  To “possess your soul” then, is to allow time throughout the day to literally catch up with yourself.  It asserts the reality of “what is” as the starting point of our lives rather than the imagination of where we would otherwise wish it to be.  Being patient with the actual pace of our lives is ultimately a matter of self-control.  And whenever we lose this virtue it leads to a less honourable expression of life.

Paul instructed the Thessalonians to “learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God” (1Thes. 4:4-5).  In other words, self-control better exemplifies a person who knows the sovereignty of God in their lives.  In the context of his letter, Paul was of course referring to moral self-discipline.  But the same exhortation applies to any lack of self-control we exhibit in relationship to our souls.  When the “passionate lusts” of our imagination drive us to live out of sync with the reality of who we actually are we tend to lose our sense of wholeness.  “In patience, you shall possess your souls.”  Perhaps this is what the apostle had in mind when he wrote, “since we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit” (Gal. 5:25).

The obvious antidote to “losing our souls” is to simply allow times in our day to catch up with ourselves—times to reclaim the peace that we’ve lost track of in the frenzy and distractions of our busy lives.  To “possess our souls” is to accept the reality of “what is” as more true than even the most attractive and urgent alternatives we can imagine.  And the more we exercise such times of restorative patience in our day the more in sync we will be with the truth of our lives.

The false self prays from where it thinks it should be or would like to be.  The true self prays from where it is.

Albert Haase,O.F.M.