Are you who you think you should be?
Perhaps you’re restless and unfulfilled, searching for your place in the world?
Imagine the perfect you. That vision of yourself minus all those annoying faults that drive you crazy.
If you want to be more yourself, get closer to God.
Trista’s journey closer
My blogging friend Trista (go Bright Maidens! Yeah!) wrote a post recently called “Becoming Myself By Getting Closer to Him.” It’s a story of her coming back to God after straying during high school.
This part really struck me:
Through prayer and my friend’s probing, I realized I missed God. I missed seeing the world through lenses of love. On my own, I was petty, bored, cruel, and easily disheartened. With God challenging me to love and grow, my world became “broad and light, not boring but filled with infinite surprises” as Pope Benedict XVI said it would.
. . . . . . . . . . .
“You seem different,” a friend told me that summer.
I smiled and shrugged. “Nah, just more myself.”
I’m always saying this! Union with God makes you more of who you’re created to be because sin limits you.
How sin limits you
Sin is damaging–your own sin and the sin of others against you.
The human person is made to be expansive and generous, building up others through relationship and a gift of self. Sin closes you in on yourself. It makes you more self-seeking, self-interested and bitter.
The sins of others against you causes pain. You put up walls for fear of getting hurt.
Pretty soon, there’s places in your personality you just don’t want to go. The accumulation of walls becomes pretty limiting.
How Christ frees you
But God can heal these wounds like no one else. His power, his life flowing in your heart can change you, make you more expansive and giving again. Make you impervious to the damage of the world and sin.
The result? Freedom!
You become free to flourish to the full extent of your God given personality and gifts. You are free to explore all your talents and abilities. To become who you were truly meant to be.
Catechetical Takeaway
You were created in the image of God, to be like him. Jesus is that model of what that looks like.
“He [Jesus] Who is ‘the image of the invisible God’ (Col. 1:15), is Himself the perfect man. To the sons of Adam He restores the divine likeness which had been disfigured from the first sin onward” (Gaudium et Spes 22).
Sin limits you. Union with Jesus changes you to think and act more like him. And, thus to become more who you were created to be.
If you want to be more yourself, get closer to God.
- What’s you take?
- How has sin limited you in your life?
- What talents, abilities and personality traits have you found from closeness to Christ?
Let me know in the comments!
Excellent post, Marc! This is so critically important. People fear God because they’re afraid of what He will ask of them, if they submit to His will. The truth is that we are slaves to sin without God’s help, and the most liberating experience of all is life in Christ. Amen and amen!
Thanks Lisa!
You’re absolutely right! My own personality has flourished after truly following Christ and experiencing is healing, mercy and love. It’s opened up places that I never knew existed and talents I never knew I had. I’ve loved more, felt more and lived more as a committed Catholic than I ever did before my conversion. It’s sounds incredible but it’s very real.
Thanks for the comment!
I remind my students that sin prevents us from seeing stuff at Mass that’s plain as day to the Cloud of Witnesses.
Oh yeah, that’s so true! The Saints were able to understand and see so much more in the ordinary things of life. And, they understood themselves so much more. In that understanding, they clung to Christ even more as well.
Marc, this is such a great post. Today, Holy Saturday, is a great day to reflect on: “Sin limits you. Union with Jesus changes you to think and act more like him. And, thus to become more who you were created to be.” This week has been one of striving for union, conforming to the image of Christ through struggling to pick up my cross and follow him. It has been a week of joining in the suffering of Christ. What an eye opener to think that through this incredible trial I am becoming more who I was created to be… an adopted daughter of God who is called to share in the love of the Trinity… who is called to be fully divinized by God. (CCC 398) I know it seems like “dah… of course,” but sometimes it just takes another person saying it or writing a great post to open our eyes to the obvious. Thanks
Kelly, this is an awesome comment! Sounds like you’ve really had a productive Lent (although, it occurs to me perhaps a tough one as well…that’s the way it sometimes works isn’t it?).
Yes, you are absolutely right. Your trials shape you into who you’re meant to be as well. All in God’s working. I know what you mean too. Sometimes it does take hearing it from someone else for the light to go on. That’s how God uses all of us to fulfill his purposes.
Thanks for commenting!