introduction

While I consider faith the center of myself, I often find it difficult to live up to what that means. Every morning I wake up, and think "okay. I've got this. Today, I will watch my language, and be helpful in all circumstances, and be thankful in all situations." I create a laundry lists of what it means to have a Christ-centered life, and I try earnestly to live up to it. Given my human nature, I fail everyday at one point or the other. I become discouraged and every night as I lay in bed, I confess my shortcomings to God. I absolve to do better tomorrow, and the cycle goes on and on and on. I used to feel an incredible amount of guilt and shame around my failures, but now I acknowledge it as part of the human condition.

But I have come to realize that we don't have to leave it at there. We don't have to passively accept our humanity. While we cannot escape it (and that's okay), we can be transformed. And it's not by following a list of dos and don'ts. It involves a conversion of life that is rooted in a change of perspective. It is embodied in Colossians when St. Paul tells us to "seek the things that are above, where Christ is". Rather than playing our own morality police, we need to focus our lives on Christ and His presence in all things and in all places and in all people. If we truly believe He is present, if our eyes are truly opened to his omnipresence, our character will change and those things we found difficult will be overcome with God's help. It won't make it any less difficult, but we will prevail.

"Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:13-14