Purity

“He said to his disciples, ‘Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?’” (Mark 4:40).

Christ Asleep in the Boat with Disciples (Watanabe Sadao)

We are asked to be children of God.

This is important.  It means that we are asked to be like children for God.  And children do not question their parents (or at least young children do not).  They do not try to manage everything for themselves.  They do not take matters into their own hands.  They do not try to solve everything themselves.  In fact, young children will usually come to their mother (or father) and ask for help with everything.  They might ask for help in getting dressed, or using the bathroom, or showering.  They might ask for help to reach things, or go to sleep, or even to express themselves.

Young children are able to rely on their parents for everything.  They do not lie awake at night thinking that perhaps tomorrow their parents will not provide for them or look after them.  They do not wonder if their mother will have food in the fridge the next day.  Very young children work on the assumption that there will be ample food and love and support.  They work on the assumption that they will have access to whatever they wish.  They assume that if they ask their parent for something – time, care and attention, they will get it.

There is a sort of purity in the love that children – especially very young children – have for their parents.  There is a sort of love that relies so heavily on their parents that they cannot imagine life without them.  There is a sort of purity that comes from children who love their parents in this way, and that is the same sort of purity that God is asking of us.

When my children were very little, my husband would speak quite often of feeling almost jealous of their contentment.  He would watch them without a care in the world and say that he wished that he too could experience that sort of life.  I used to laugh and remind him that he had indeed experienced that previously, but he simply could not remember that feeling.

Luckily for us, God asks us to feel the same thing as adults.  He asks us to trust in Him in a way that allows us to experience the beauty of perfect love…

There are so many virtues that I am invited to share in.  And with these virtues we are asked to trust in God.  God will take care of the problems.  All He is asking from us is for us to love Him and trust in Him.  God will take care of everything so that we can sleep like a child.  And Christ Himself demonstrated this in the boat when the storm raged and He slept…

“That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, ‘Let us go over to the other side.’ Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him.  A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped.  Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, ‘Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?’  He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, ‘Quiet! Be still!’ Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.  He said to his disciples, ‘Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?’” (Mark 4:35-40).

And it occurs to me today that God is just asking me to have faith like a child – with purity – so that I can sleep in the boat during the storm…

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.