God's will

This Tremendous Lover was written by M. Eugene Boylan in 1947. The title refers to Jesus Christ Who loves each of us so much that He would have died for any one of us, and Who wants all of us to love Him with all of our strength and passion. Each of us should be Christ's lover.

I just finished Chapter 7, "Seeking Christ Through Humility". Humility opposes pride. Pride was the sin of our first parents; Adam and Eve desired to choose what was good and evil for themselves, without regard to God's will. Pride still underscores every sin; the root of every sin is our turning away from God and to ourselves - choosing ourselves instead of God. Boylan says that pride is what stands in Christ's way; grace cannot permeate the soul that chooses itself over God. The humble soul accepts its need for redemption, for grace, for God.

The second part of the chapter is about conformance to God's will. Pride and humility play out in our daily choices. Pride leads us to choose our own will over God's; humility allows us to submit to God, to let our hearts be molded by Him.

From page 88:

Our position in His plan at any moment depends upon our will at that moment. If we reject His will, then we put ourselves outside His plan for us; if we conform our will to His, then all things work together for our good. For, as we have said, "God's will is of a piece" -- He wills our happiness, and His plan is to lead us to happiness through Christ. His plan, in fact, is to re-establish all things fully in Christ, and every single detail that He wills co-operates to that end. The one exception is the case of the unrepentant sinner, whose sin puts him outside that plan insofar as it provides for his happiness, but who falls immediately into another plan in which God's justice rules.

Take a second to re-read that last sentence about the unrepentant sinner and God's justice.

On page 91 is a very striking passage about how all things are re-established fully in Christ:

Our Lord compared Himself to a vine of which we were the branches; He also spoke of the seed which, being cast into the ground, had to die to itself in order to germinate and grow to fruit-bearing maturity. Let us think of Christ as a seed cast into the barren soil which we can consider to be the whole universe. The seed dies of itself and becomes a plant sending out roots in all directions. Each of these tiny roots embraces the particles of the soil, chooses out what is in harmony with its needs, absorbs and makes it part of itself. And so in the course of time all the good that is in the soil is transformed into the living tissue of the plant.... For indeed the world was barren of supernatural life, until Christ's death sowed the seed of His life in it. And it is by His life that we are made truly alive. He is not only the vine, He is the only vine; and there is no other life that really matters except that which is found in Him.