The one thing God cannot do 

Everything acts in accord to its nature and so does God. He is love, His nature is love, so He can only be loving.

Advent has begun, and the mass scriptures are giving us glimpses of who Jesus is. Tuesday He told us “All things have been handed over to me by my Father” (Luke 10:22). Thursday He warns us that not everyone will enter His kingdom (Matthew 7:21, 24-27). This Sunday, John the Baptist prophesies of Him; He is the one who will gather the wheat and burn the chaff (Matthew 3:1-12). The King of kings and Lord of lords is soon to come. Are we ready? 

Some time ago, I came across an old message from a beloved friend and upon re-reading it, one sentence stood out. A new interpretation of that sentence came immediately to mind, and it wasn’t a pleasant one! What was he really trying to say (I thought)? All joy left and negativity hit like a hurricane…rethinking our past communications, should I have said (this or that)? But it only lasted a minute. What was done was done; how he intended that sentence to be understood is irrelevant to today. Oddly enough as God would have it, I heard from him the next day. What a ‘coincidence’. And his overflowing joy washed away any possible remnants of my misunderstanding. 

The enemy had been messing with my mind but only because he had something to mess with! He messes with our judgementalism, fears and insecurities, disordered anger and all the other behaviors that manifest out of our self-protection habits. 

Sometimes these experiences make me rethink the obvious. Any negative thought, no matter how short or inconspicuous, cannot be of God because He can’t think negatively. God is love. We think of Him as all-powerful and capable of doing anything, but even He can’t act against His own nature. He cannot not love. And of all the many aspects of His nature, anything not of love can’t exist in Him: hate, negativity, cruelty, judgmental thoughts etc. are not God’s. 

These also don’t exist in lower order creation, animals and plants. Only higher order creation, people and angels, are capable of a values-based interpretation of our surroundings and drawing conclusions from that.  Whether or not it is Satan putting the negative thoughts into my mind, I don’t know, but he of course is there to fuel them along making a mountain out of a molehill! 

And if it’s not of love, it’s not of God. In the Two Standards, St. Ignatius teaches us so clearly of the two camps to which we might belong, God’s or Satan’s, and there is no in-between. By our choices we belong to one or the other. Thus, our choices are either of God or not of Him. And although God seems complex and beyond our understanding, God is actually quite simple to know. We are the ones who complicate the relationship, not Him. 

Thankfully by praying the daily examen God can show me when my thoughts housed even the slightest bit of negativity, and whether or not I ‘took the bait’ and engaged this negativity or casted it away. But I can also use the practice of three-part awareness to really understand my total experience (since the spiritual is part of the human experience). At the point that my thoughts (and mood) changed, I already know where my psyche was at. But what was I physically feeling? Emotionally? Interiorly? And what is my plan of action to rebound out of it more quickly tomorrow—what grace do I need from God? 

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me a sinner (The Jesus Prayer) 

And whatever that planned action is (usually saying the Jesus prayer a zillion times), I know it isn’t complete without a virtue as my weapon. The only antidote to a lack of love is love itself, and that can only come from God. So the need for us to petition God for the grace of loving that person even more cannot be overlooked. 

Lilies don’t choose the field into which they are born, and neither do we. Although the lily can’t change its field, we can but not without first changing ourselves. When the absence of love presents itself, the solution is never about the other person. It’s always about us and the only solution is making a beeline straight to God in prayer to unload more garbage from our soul.

It is the nature of love that it cannot be contained; it desires to be shared. As God is love Himself, He desires to love you. Don’t let another Advent pass by without preparing to receive Love on Christmas day.

Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam 😊

(Images: sign on wall by Sam Barber from Unsplash; girl reading to Teddy from Pexels)