Life's Easiest Truth

It is too easy, simply too easy... 

We live a cosmos of fractured love and broken promises, little wonder nation upon nation of human souls stagger for acceptance and are fearful of disapproval. 

So into the monastery of the soul I (and infinite others) retreat. Austerity with the real me is learned while I protectively buttress my future with a fresh face I pray will gain an accolade or two.

But now in this monastery built without hands, blocks or mortar I am self-handcuffed, bound to the slavery of a false me should I ever stand on this monastery's parapets and holler 'HELLO' as my new introduction of the better me to any passerby.

I have learned to hide me from me, as well as the world. And so I project what I trust will be received as a perfect image. In so doing I lose the true me, and deny the true me to all I know. I rob me and them of the true me, the original and the best.

I am then lost.

Everyone of us is shadowed by an illusory person: a false self. ~ Thomas Merton

The Lord is not interested in my shadow - how I have made me, but instead has already loved the authentic me.

To move into the presence of the Lord is to find freedom. It is the dismantling of my scaffolds by He who loves me more than I love me. These protective scaffolds I have erected have ended up ruling me and even hurting me. 

Jesus' heart thirsts that I would love me as equally as He does - as He made me.

I can't pretend before the Throne of Grace. How foolish would I be to even attempt pretense?

The me I am in my eyes, the me I project to others' eyes, the me that others decide to see is the me of the filters I have hidden under.

Jesus sees no filters or requires no spectacles to view me correctly, and His pleasure in me has not changed.

In His presence I notice that the false me begins to shrink... and I delight in the discovery of what it means to live by grace and not by performance. ~ Brennan Manning

It is too easy, simply too easy... for to sit with the Lord is to be set free to be just me.

Today's Soul Snippet:

The most demanding tasks of our lives is to become like Christ. ~ Brennan Manning

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