A thought in the eternal mind of God

The other day I declared that ‘I was a thought in the eternal mind of God’ to which my wife rolled her eyes as if to say ‘what was He thinking?’

But it’s true; no one is here by accident, not one is unplanned. We do not realise our significance in the plan of God, that we were created to be co-heirs of His kingdom and even though we have no idea what that might look like; it sounds good to me.

It is easy to lose sight of it though, if our lives on earth are not particularly thrilling or important in the eyes of the world or ourselves. But in a way that’s the point; it’s not earned, it’s given and the degree of glory is only measured by the degree of sacrifice or love, not performance in some heroic enterprise or worldly achievement.

St Therese of Lisieux made sanctity available and within reach for all with her discovery of the ‘Little Way’ where every moment of life, pleasant or otherwise, could be sanctified and translated into an act of love by dying to oneself and going against our nature or ‘natural’ responses. 

I thought of a good example the other day; when your spouse wants you to go for an evening at the opera, to dress up like a penguin and listen to a 2-hour screaming contest whilst missing the match on telly. What an amazing opportunity to obtain everlasting glory! Instead of going with a face like a galley slave chained to his oar whose vessel is about to be rammed; just bear up and endure it with a smile.

The ladies can make use of their husbands’ faults (if they have any) in the same way and bear sweetly and quietly with them offering any irritation to God for the sake of the kingdom. It’s simple but not easy!

To walk the road to holiness, that is our task, our trial, and only when we become what we were created for will we understand the why, of it all.