We live in a world of artificial lights. They have become so ubiquitous that we can hardly fathom life without them. Some live every day with hardly any exposure to the sun at all. They do not need it. And all is well…so long as the lights stay on.
But one day, the electricity will be cut, and it will not come back on. And then we will remember the horror of the dark, and why we never outgrew the need for the sun.
There are things that I know are right to do, but which I do not feel like doing right now.
But when I examine myself, I realize that I will never feel like doing them.
And if that is the case, then they can only ever be done when I do not feel like doing them.
And then, I know that I must do it now.
You will at times be selfish. You will be unwise. You will believe wrong things. You will hurt those that you love. You will give in to fear. You will judge wrongly.
None of this is good, but it is common and accepted. Many of these sins will be committed without thought, without meaning to do wrong, but afterwards realizing that your behavior went astray. Do not worry. Christ has atoned for all of these and obtaining forgiveness is easy.
Much more significant are the moments where God has already granted you clarity, where you have a sure understanding of what is right, and you sin against that knowledge anyway. You feel the full weight of your conscience, and you defy it anyway. And you do so because following your conscience would come at great personal cost. You learn that your soul has a price, and you have just exchanged it for that price.
These are the moments that truly defile you. These are the infractions that darken the soul. These are the choices that sin against the light. These are the times that lead to true damnation.
Of course, even here, repentance is possible, but it will be at an even greater cost than what you first sold your soul for. You must go back and correct the very choice you made wrong, and the consequences for doing right will be even higher now. It will hurt, you may be sure of it, but you may also be sure that it will be worth it.
Being a person of conscience means being willing to stand up for truth if no one else will. Obviously, we hope it doesn’t come to that, we hope that our society will be a buffer against the waves of lies and sin, but if they will not, we still will. If nowhere else, the buck stops here. We are the last line of defense. The iron plate that will not yield while everything else breaks in pieces. We cannot bear the idea of having to face our Maker and having Him ask of us, “but why didn’t you say anything.” And so, whether we wanted it or not, we are the bearers of our generation’s public conscience, the ones who will not give silent, implicit consent to what we know is wrong.
The fountain of youth is simply having a purpose.
A man with nothing more to do is already dead.
The fact that you can recognize wisdom in others, means that those same insights already exist within you. If they didn’t, you would have no reference to recognize it in others. All the realizations that we find by exploring the world can also be found by exploring within.
True connection with another cannot come from surface-level interactions. To have a bosom friend requires knowing one another at the level of the soul. Real connection like that comes only through vulnerability, and vulnerability always involves risk. If there wasn’t risk, it would not, by definition, be vulnerable. This is why making true friends is not easy, it is a dangerous business. It means giving others ample opportunity to really hurt you and hate you, but trusting that they will honor you instead.
And, of course, some of the people that we are vulnerable with will let us down. They will betray our trust; they will wound us in our tender places. Being willing to still trust anyone after that is hard. It may go against our natural instincts. It is like being struck on one cheek and then turning the other. But, of course, that is exactly what we are called to do.
True connection with God is no different. It comes by going with Him into most vulnerable of places: our shames and our sins. By acknowledging and confessing these worst parts, we give Him every justification to hurt us and damn us, but we trust that He will forgive and heal us instead. Coming to God is a dangerous business, but it is the only way to become His true child.
When you do what is right and suffer for it, what follows will reveal the purity of your motivations. Either you will feel regret, and know that you are only a fair-weather disciple, or you will feel conviction, and know that your commitment is true. Without being tried like this, your sincerity is only theoretical.
Man is mighty enough that he may bend God's creation
But it will always snap back
It is only when we are able to do what is right when we stand to lose the most that we gain full ownership of the virtue. At this point, no one can deny that we live and die by that truth. So long as the maintaining of our virtue is untested, it isn’t fully ours.
And so, if we are ever to truly own our virtues, each must be tested in the most trying of circumstances. God does not give these trials to hurt us; He gives them so that we can fully own something good.
Spiritual Wanderings 