Choosing one’s attitude
I believe that the problem isn’t so much with the message as with our perspective. An uncle of mine once told me that he “would rather be looking down at the grass than looking up at the roots.” When it comes to God, how often do we find ourselves looking up at the roots; forgetting to look down at the grass? Are we living large but spiritually deprived?
St. Thomas Aquinas once said “No person can live without joy. That is why someone deprived of spiritual joy goes after carnal pleasures.” A fundamental law of nature states that when a vacuum exists something will fill it. If we don’t feed our soul, fill our spirit with God’s love, find joy in His loving embrace, we inevitably find other things, earthly things, to fill the void.
Viktor Frankl, a concentration camp survivor wrote that “We who lived in concentration camps can remember those who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They offer proof that everything can be taken from a person but one thing—the last freedom—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”
If we want to be filled with the joy of salvation then we must rid ourselves of anything that keeps God from our lives. Creating space for God, becoming poor in spirit, opens up our hearts to His joy. It fills us with His love. Hunger for God’s love will give us strength and sustain us. Sorrow for our sins removes the weight of guilt from our souls and lightens our spirit.
God gives each of us the freedom to choose what is the most important. We can either use our last freedom as a stepping stone to God or as a stumbling block, it is all a matter of perspective.
