Return to ‘yes’

 

For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not “Yes and No”; but in him it is always “Yes.” For in him every one of God’s promises is a “Yes.” (2 Corinthians 1:19-20a)

Sooner or later one comes to realize all attempts to fulfill one’s life are futile.

They all fail because they are all more less the product of the ego’s attempt to satisfy itself, thinking, “If I just do this ... or go there ... or get that ... or accomplish this, I will be satisfied.” Fulfillment will follow like the dawn.

But it’s an illusion for at least three reasons I can see.

First, the human heart is a bottomless abyss, always aware there is more it doesn’t have and might well enjoy. Second, because the human ego is inherently arrogant, thinking it can satisfy itself by its own actions and best laid plans.

And third, because we tend to think we know or can figure out what we need, but this is just another version of reason two: arrogance.

We don’t, of course, know what we need, until what we need finds us, and that what is really a Who ... who is known only in moments of knowing a great love you cannot deny and know you did nothing to deserve.

It is right about then that the heart grows still, and you begin to realize this is what you needed all along.

If you can resist the urge to do something or hang a label on what is happening in you, in other words, if you can just be there, you can abide in the Loving Mystery who is saying “yes” to your life in all its mottled glory, with its loves and losses, its failures and false steps, its sins of omission and commission, its best intentions and futile efforts to give itself what it actually needs.

The human heart is a reservoir for the glory of God, which is to say, for the Love who says “yes” to us every blessed morning, if we can just find a place and way to listen.

If you find such a place and a way, go back there, return often. You will stop asking questions about life’s meaning.

David L. Miller