Turning in to God

THIS, as much as possible, should be the first thing we do once we wake up in the morning. We need to tune in to God for the simple reason that God is everything to us. Without him or detached from him, we are actually nothing and can do nothing of real value even if we do many so-called brilliant actions. Let’s avoid getting self-deluded.

God is our Creator, the author of all reality. It is through him that we go beyond what we merely see and feel, or what we can understand. With him, we get in touch with reality in all its entirety. Our world would then not just be our own world, quite subjective, but the world as God created it. We get to become objective and global in our perception of things.

Yes, it may take some time before we can actually tune in to him since we have to contend with a lot of static, like our laziness and lethargy, our lack of understanding of the role of God in our life, if not worse things like religious indifference, agnosticism and atheism.

But once we can overcome these, which is actually a lifetime struggle for us, we should try our best to hook up with him, no matter how tentative and tenuous, as soon as possible. The difficulties involved in connecting ourselves with him should not discourage. Rather they should spur us to find the means to achieve this goal.

This is no pipe dream. We are not inventing things, engaging in fiction. In the first place, because God is always around. And he is not present in us and in the world in a passive way. He is eternally active, full of love and desire to be with us. He is actually intervening in our lives through his abiding providence.

Besides he has given us everything we need to get in touch with him, and even to be intimate with him. He has given us his own Son who became man and who revealed to us all we need to know and to be with God.

Christ has left us with his word and teaching, his sacraments, and the Church itself, all of which perpetuate till the end of time and beyond his living presence and redemptive action for our own sake. In fact, Christ remains with us in the real sense of the word. We are not left only with some symbols and signs.

We just have to dispose ourselves to capture this fundamental reality of our life by exercising our faith, hope and love as fully as possible. This is actually the most fundamental duty we need to carry out. All other duties and responsibilities would depend on this.

As Christ himself said, he is the way, the truth and the life. No one goes to the Father except through him. In another instance, he described himself as the vine and we the branches. We need to be with him if we want to live the life proper to us.

We can start tuning ourselves in to him by developing the practice of morning offering, that is, once we wake up, the first thought that we should try to make is to address God, saying whatever comes to mind first, as in, “Lord, thank you for another day,” or “I love you, Lord, and I want to serve you,” or words to that effect.

That way, we already dispose ourselves to be with him, and from there, let’s continue to deal with him by carrying our ordinary daily duties, which are a vital part of God’s will for us, and by having recourse to a variety of acts of piety, like mental prayer, spiritual reading, going to Mass and receiving Holy Communion, etc.

These acts of piety will keep our intimacy with God even as we get immersed with the things of the world. And far from desensitizing us from world affairs, they actually would sharpen our perception of things, and would give us the proper impulses and motives for our involvement in these mundane concerns. Let’s disabuse ourselves from the fear that piety undermines our responsibilities in the world.

Of course, God will always be a mystery. But instead of being restrained and turned off by it, his mysteriousness and ineffability should, in fact, draw us more to him. It’s only in heaven, our final abode, that we can see him face to face. But now, we have to be led by faith, hope and charity that will always have their share of lights and shadows.

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