Growing in intimacy with God

            THAT’S right. We need to grow in intimacy with God. Let’s banish the fear that such aspiration is impossible, or that we are just engaging in some wishful thinking, pursuing an illusion that will never come true.

            Let’s remember that God is our Creator who not only gives us existence but also keeps us in it. We cannot exist and we cannot keep on existing without him. Ergo, he is very much in us.

            As the Psalm says: “If I ascend into heaven, you are there. If I descend into hell, you are present. If I take my wings early in the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there also shall your hand lead me...” (139,8-9)

            To be sure, his presence in us is never passive nor simply formal. His presence is ever active and marked always by how he is, that is, with love, wisdom, mercy, justice, etc.

            As St. Paul says: “It is God who of his good pleasure works in you both the will and the performance.” (Phil 2,14) And again in the Psalms, are told the following: “Lord, you have proved me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up. You have understood my thoughts afar off. My path and my line you have searched out. And you have foreseen all my ways...” (139,1-4)

            We just have to learn how to discern and capture this reality, and to keep it going in us for always. And the secret is precisely that—to grow in intimacy in our relationship with him.

            We have to strongly remind ourselves that this relationship is not a fantasy, is not just our invention without any basis in reality. And the secret is to set our heart on the law of the Lord that hopefully will lead us to a vital encounter with God. We have to train our heart on no other object but solely on God.

            Thus, while pursuing worldly affairs, while keenly interested in such values as effectiveness and efficiency, practicality, profitability, popularity, etc., we have to make sure that such values directly contribute to growing in our intimacy with God.

            We have to make sure that God strikes us as a living person, and not just an idea, a memory, an abstract character whom we go to as a kind of psychological or emotional prop, or a spiritual ornament.

            Otherwise, these values would just feed our pride and vanity or that mistaken belief that we are just on our own, our true freedom understood as being by ourselves completely without being beholden to anyone, God included.

            That is the prevalent problem we are seeing these days, even among those who pride themselves as believers. To them, God is not actually a person, a living being who is always with us and is everything to us.

            We need to see God in everything and everyone. Thus, we have to learn how to be recollected and to be a contemplative especially in the middle of the world as we go through our temporal affairs.

            Let’s be sure that God is precisely also in the middle of the world, in our mundane affairs. He is waiting for us there and is expecting us to turn these things to him, since these things are the very test God provides us to see if we truly believe and love him or not.

            When we notice that we are just having many stray and spontaneous thoughts that are often critical and uncharitable, and reacting to them in a purely human way without relating them to God, it can be a sign we are not living in the presence of God.

            When we notice that our interest in success and other values like the ones mentioned above do not motivate us to pray, to love God and others more, to be more concerned about justice and the common good, we are not growing in intimacy with God. We would just be feeding our egos, sometimes using God for that purpose.

            When we have presence of God, we would feel the love of God that is full of mercy and wisdom. We would be convinced that we are truly his children and would learn how to behave according to that basic truth.

            When we grow in intimacy with God, we would become more familiar with his will and ways, and would feel strongly moved to cooperate more full in his designs. More than simply doing our own thing, we would be more conscious we are doing things with him.