God, the Source, is Infinite Love. This Love is already here, within us and all around us. We do not have to find it, create it, or earn it. Perhaps we simply have to learn to see it and make ourselves available to it.
From the moment we are born, our experiences, our family, our upbringing, our relationships, and society gradually shape our personality. It allows us to find our place, connect with others, and navigate the world.
But this necessary process also has a side effect. Through our experiences, we build walls and barriers that create a certain distance between ourselves and what is. Our fears, our wounds, our expectations, our judgments, and our need for control can then come between us and life.
We no longer see only what is. We also see it through everything we have become.
So perhaps we do not learn to see by adding more. Perhaps we learn to see by becoming less occupied with ourselves.
Jesus invites us to become like little children. Not to become ignorant or naive, but perhaps to rediscover the ability to receive life with fewer barriers between ourselves and what is.
This requires allowing life to touch us. Not immediately trying to protect ourselves from what a situation awakens within us, whether joy, fear, sadness, anger, vulnerability, or wonder.
Little by little, a different way of meeting life becomes possible:
Pay attention to what is here.
Accept what is here, as it is.
Let the situation touch us.
Discern how to choose to respond from Love.
Let go of our need to control what comes of it.
Accepting what is does not mean approving of everything. Allowing ourselves to be touched does not mean giving up the need to protect ourselves. And surrender does not mean becoming passive.
We continue to think, choose, and act. We can welcome or refuse, stay or leave, speak or remain silent, offer support or set a boundary. Discernment is precisely about meeting what is truly here, allowing the situation to touch us, and seeking how to respond from Love.
Then we act.
And we accept that the outcome is not ours to control.
Letting go of our need to control what comes of our actions means recognizing that we are not the source of everything that unfolds. We do our part fully, but we stop demanding that life conform to our expectations, our fears, or our will. We surrender the rest to God.
Our only spiritual effort then becomes surprisingly simple: to freely choose, moment by moment, the intention to make ourselves available to Infinite Love.
Life, meanwhile, goes on. We love, we work, we raise our children, we pursue our ambitions, we make decisions, we face conflicts, we set boundaries, we experience joy, and we live through loss. There can be an enormous amount to do.
But there is nothing we need to become in order to be worthy of the Love that is already here.
There is nothing to become, nothing to attain, and nowhere to arrive, not even spiritually. Perhaps it is simply about letting go of the struggle enough to allow what is already here to flow through us.
We choose the intention. God’s grace does the rest.