Walking on Water to Jesus

I wanted to share a little reflection on the spiritual life and the steps life and Our Lord has helped me take. One thing stands out in the growth my life has taken: “less is becoming more”. The road has become narrower, the ease of options via extremities has become far less appealing. There seems to be far more narrow choices, narrow paths, but choices that have become far more meaningful and fulfilling.

This is not to say my life has not had major shifts – its just that the shifts although big physically and circumstantially, were very small spiritually. It almost like my life has become less me becoming someone for God, and God making me become truly more for Him. Growth in sincerity, acceptance and the knowledge of my own weaknesses were critical in “letting go, and letting God.” Anyone who has read Jean Vanier or listened to him speak will know that the smallest flicker of love in our hearts is where God dwells, and He dwells there despite everything life has thrown at us – and when we let prayer and love sink in to our hearts, this little flicker becomes a fire, we come to accept our weaknesses because God has so overwhelmingly accepted our own, and then we have strength to carry others’ weaknesses and like Jesus take up a cross not thinking of ourselves, but of others.


I used to think of life in a complex set of ideals high up in the sky and life and holiness the accomplishing of these ideals. Little did I know that ideals never come down – they always stay up there and if you keep staring at them you will never notice what might be right in front of you. On top of that, you may end up feeling you are meaningless. Ideals have a purpose I’ve always found hard to articulate, they are meant to keep us moving on track, to keep us growing. When we bring them down, that is not love, nor have we truly brought them down – we simply inflated ourselves to be “worthy” of them. Nor are we to fail to notice how an ideal has helped us grow from something lesser than what we are called to. Thinking we have attained our ideals will make us press them upon others, and crush them. Looking at what holds us back will make us despair. Life is always about growing, even in heaven we will always be growing – we will always be in the process of becoming who God has made us to be. We are designed to be in the presence of The Infinite, and the preparation begins here.
I find peace thinking of the presence of Jesus. For me, “presence” has always been a very powerful experience of love. As a child I was terrified of aliens, it was the fact that my imagination painted them in my bedroom that made them so terrifying. In my teenage years, the presence of friends defined me, my hobbies, and my dreams. In my post-secondary schooling, the presence of the sacraments, truth, and sports, made me aim at love, sincerity, and virtue. The need for human presence in my work and my friendships has formed how I picture my future growth in being generous with God and my society.
So in all this, my life has become let God do the growth. Everything that happens to me is under his watch and care. All that matters is that I look to him, his presence in everything, that I make each choice such that it welcomes his presence most deeply into my life. Let us pray for all those who feel lonely and abandoned, those who are searching for meaning in their lives, or who are anxious for ideals when God is offering what we need most: His presence.
ps: I place  the picture of Peter walking on water for this blog post because it best captures my sense of moving forward with Jesus. Somehow the moment Peter looked at the water, he fell in. If we keep our eyes on Jesus, we will continue to walk on water – let Jesus worry about the storm.

culled from http://saltandlighttv.org