“my thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor are your ways my ways…
As high as the heavens are above the earth,
so high are my ways above your ways
and my thoughts above your thoughts.”
Who is God? Totally, completely and unalterably. Who is God?
God is love, we are told by John the Apostle in his first letter. In fact he says it twice and the Greek is unambiguous: “O THEOS AGAPE ESTIN.” “God is love.”
If God, then, is love, we, his creatures, made in his image and likeness, are made for love: a love that is patient and kind; not jealous or pompous, rude or quick to judge A love which , in the words of Saint Paul, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” A love that bleeds every drop for love of the beloved, that dies that we might live, and suffers that we might be redeemed.
But, sadly, our love is seldom so boundless, and our ways seldom so loving. Too often, we are the grumbling workers, resenting those who seem to have what we want: “These last ones worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who bore the day’s burden and the heat,’ jealous of God’s goodness to our brothers, consumed by what Shakespeare called the “green eyed monster” of envy.
Pope Francis speaks eloquently about this “worm of jealously and envy,” that turns hearts bitter heart and makes these unhappy hearts pump vinegar instead of blood. Such hearts are the cause of violence, conflict and discord. The Holy Father goes on, “War does not begin on the battlefield: war begins in the heart, with this misunderstanding, division, envy, with this fighting with each other.”
Sometimes, we too are jealous, you and I. Lotsa times, we are jealous. “Who does she think she is?” “Mrs. Astor on her high horse?” “God’s gift to mankind?” And him! “The King of the world?” “God Almighty?” “The know-it-all!”
And God looks at us with a patient smile and says:
“What if I wish to give this last one the same as you? Am I not free to do as I wish with my own mercy? Are you envious because I am generous?’ Is your love so little, so miserly and so grasping that you cannot understand my love for the lost, the forgotten and even the sinner? Is your love so small, that you cannot accept my love for you?”
And there God is right. I seldom understand how much he loves me. Me, as I am, in all my messiness. Not me the the super hero. But me, in all my littleness and in all the ways that I am not like those well paid laborers, the ones to whom he gives all the talents, the good looks and the fame.
Indeed, the more I accept the lot which God has chosen for me, and stop envying the life of the glamorous others, the more I accept his love, and the more I know, in the words of Saint James, the wisdom which is from above, “pure, peaceable, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits, without inconstancy or insincerity.”
And when we accept where God wants us to be, envy drops away and we finally realize that happiness and holiness is not about doing great things, but in surrendering to God’s will, so that he can do with me what he will, in all things, great or small.
Saint Therese of Lisieux said it best:
“Our Lord has explained this mystery to me. He showed me the book of nature, and I understood that every flower created by him is beautiful, that the brilliance of the rose and the whiteness of the lily do not lessen the perfume of the violet or the sweet simplicity of the daisy. I understood that if all the lowly flowers wished to be roses, nature would lose its springtime beauty, and the fields would not longer be enameled with lovely colors. And so it is in the world of souls, Our Lord’s living garden. He has been pleased to create great Saints who may be compared to the lily and the rose, but he has also created little ones, who must be content to be daisies or simple violets flowering at his feet, and whose mission it is to gladden his Divine Eyes when he looks down upon them. And the more gladly they do his will the greater their perfection.”
So there is the great secret: if we make our ways God’s ways, and if our love is like unto his, we need only surrender to his will and be glad that he made us a daisy.
