We all make mistakes and missteps throughout life. We miscalculate things. We don’t measure the consequences of our actions well. We let ourselves be carried away by passion or recklessness. That’s just how we are. However, those aren’t the most serious mistakes. The worst thing is having life planned in a wrong way. Let’s give an example.
We all know that life is a gift. I didn’t decide to be born. I didn’t choose myself. I didn’t choose my parents or my town. Everything has been given to me. Living is, from its origin, receiving. The only way to live sensibly is to responsibly accept what is given to me.
However, we don’t always think that way. We believe that life is something owed to us. We feel like owners of ourselves. We think that the most accurate way to live is to organize everything according to ourselves. I am the only important thing. What do others matter?
Some know how to live only by demanding. They demand and demand always more. They have the impression of never receiving what they are owed. They are like insatiable children, who are never content with what they have. They do nothing but ask, claim, and lament. Hardly noticing, they gradually become the center of everything. They are the source and the norm. Everything must be subordinated to their ego. Everything must be instrumentalized for their benefit.
The person’s life then closes in on itself. The gift of each day is no longer embraced. Recognition and gratitude disappear. It is not possible to live with an open heart. People continue to talk about love, but “loving” now means possessing, desiring the other, putting them at one’s service.
This way of approaching life leads to living closed off to God. The person becomes incapable of welcoming. They do not believe in grace, do not open themselves to anything new, do not listen to any voice, do not suspect in their life any presence whatsoever. It is the individual who fills everything. That is why the warning in the Gospel of John is so serious: “The Word was the true light which shines on all men. It came into the world… and the world did not know it. It came to its own home, and its own people did not receive it.” Our great sin is to live without welcoming the light.
José Antonio Pagola
Published on www.gruposdejesus.com
English version translated with AI