“Life is difficult”. These words marked the beginning of a book that has sold over 10 million copies. The book titled “The Road Less Travelled”, written by the late American Psychiatrist, Dr Scott Peck. In his follow up book which sold over 5 million copies, he began with a more encouraging line, “Life is complex”.
What makes life so difficult or complex? Is it the world we live in? Our parents? Governments? Circumstances? Work? Unfulfilled desires? Ourselves? Suffering? Evil? Sin? God? It is hard to tell. It maybe all of this and none of it.
Or is it our fears? Fear of the past, the future or the present. Fear of a spouse, parent or friend. Fear of; death, work, a task ahead, study or even a particular fear that has now become a phobia and there are so many that one can list.
Now fear can be healthy and necessary, as when a child fears the fire in order not to get burnt. Or fear of jumping of a cliff without a harness so as not to die.
But I believe that the greatest fear which hinders our own spiritual growth is the our underlying and subconscious unhealthy fear of God. I believe deep in our thoughts and being and due to our broken nature, we hold deep and sometimes unrecognised fear of God, which may have developed or transferred from, fear of a parent or a parent figure.
What helps mask and ground this fear are those automatic responses that we have learned when we were so young. Now most people who are faithful practising Catholics when asked who is God, answer automatically that God is: Love, compassionate, merciful, joyful, tender, kind and above all Good.
We may be able to recall these superlatives so quickly and my sense is we do it well. But do we really believe it? Do we really, really believe that God loves us? I believe the answer is No. If we did believe that God is Love then there is no room for fear. I will also go out to say that there no need for after life. If our hearts are consumed by God’s love and the Light of God abides in our very being, then we are ALREADY in heaven.
Yet the reality is, there are many dark places and corners in our hearts that fear God. I mean that are scared of God. Not some Holy fear or reverence but real and unhealthy fear. Fear that if we let go and trust God, he will not do what is best for us or worse that he will abandon us. To be left alone, unloved and abandoned is our greatest fear.
We feel unworthy or don’t trust that God will come good at the end. We feel, what if? What if God makes me suffer? What if God is unfaithful to me just like the rest? Indeed this insecurity is what leaves us unhappy and always on edge and anxious.
Saint John Paul 2 expressed this well and took it further in his writings. He began by speaking of God’s “gift”. The “gift” refers to the overflowing exchange of love within the Trinity that shot us into being. This is “the gift” – God created man not in servitude but “in freedom so as to participate in the divine goodness, in God’s own eternal exchange of love.”
Yet human beings and due to our broken nature affected by “original sin” we have in our hearts, a ‘suspicion towards the Creator’. As the Pope says, this temptation “clearly includes the ‘questioning of the gift’ and of the Love, from which creation has its origin as donation”.
And so deep down and if this questioning could have a voice it would be something like: “God does not love me… He is specifically withholding things from me… He doesn’t want be to be happy’. Moreover, as the Late Pope wrote: “We conceive of God as a tyrant and we see him and his ordering of the universe as a threat to our happiness and so we turn from our natural posture of receptivity, and seek to grasp life for ourselves”.
Isn’t this so true. If we look and reflect deeply in our hearts we will discover this truth. It is not something we can wipe out completely.
But God’s voice is always stronger. Just read scripture and see how many times the phrase ‘do not be afraid’ appears. Some say about 360 times. At the heart of Scripture is God’s constant voice despite people’s unfaithfulness; ‘Trust in me’. Trust in the plans that I have for you. And God always, always is faithful and comes through.
We are called to reciprocate the gift we have received. What I mean is that we must love in order to receive love. It is only through love of God and neighbour that the light of God’s love will penetrate our fear. This is a life long task.
It is the only task that will give meaning to life’s difficulties and complexity as we realise how much we are loved by God because perfect love drives out all fear and because God will never abandon us.
Burning Hearts 