Pilgrimage Ponderings
For God's Sake
Yesterday we had a centering moment at the beginning of our staff meeting. A prayer was shared that I'll be thinking about for a long time. It goes like this:
Lord, if I love thee for heaven's sake, then deny me heaven.
Lord, if I love thee for fear of hell, then grant me hell.
Let me love thee, Lord, for thyself alone.
Amen.
Why do we love the Lord? Is it so we can get to heaven? Or so we can avoid hell? Or because God is good and holy and just and loving? As I ponder my own motivations, I can't help but remember a story from the Desert Fathers. A young monk went to his abba and told him that he was feeling guilty because his motivation for doing good was not for God's sake but for his own. Should he stop doing good? The abba's answer was to never wait until our intentions were pure to do good. In other words, don't stop doing the right thing because you are doing it for the wrong reasons.
My prayer is that regardless of what initially draws us into relationship with God, we can allow God to purify our hearts so that we can learn to love God for God's own sake.
