Be Perfect as Your Heavenly Father is Perfect

Focus

In the course of day to day life, it’s easy to get bogged down in details. Details about meetings, and appointments, and commitments, and what time is supper? Worry about details can lead to pettiness and unrest. Sometimes a simple reminder of the need for focus helps me to let go of the worry about details, and I rest easier. I want to share a little focus lesson that came to me some years ago.

In the spring of 2007, Ginny and I were living where I was in practice in Hastings, NE. Our kids grew up there. It was home for 30 years. We had the good fortune to return to Kansas City when our son, Ben, was inducted into a Jesuit honorary society at Rockhurst University. Ben was a junior pre-med student at the time. While at this event, we heard speakers’ accolades about the group of young individuals and, with those remarks, there came an occasional word of advice to the students.

Words that spoke directly to my soul that day were those of a quote from Fr. Pedro Arrupe, S.J., who served as the Superior General of the Jesuit Society from 1961 to1984. I pass these words along here, because they are applicable to our response to the vocational call to holiness - regardless our station in life.
 

“Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute way.

What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you will do with your evenings, how you will spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.

Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.”
 

Use your work, your responsibilities, your commitments as means of finding God and falling in love. It will change everything. I know it sounds crazy, but I also know it is true. In the midst of the bustle of life, take a moment. In the midst of chaos, go and find a quiet place and let Jesus love you. Love Him. It will change your day.

Blessings upon you in these winter days of January!