Growing Virtue and Uprooting Vice
Growing Virtue and Uprooting Vice. For the longest time, I would bristle when I would hear people talking about growing virtue and rooting out vice because so many times it sounded like something they were engineering. I’m thoroughly convinced that growing in holiness is something I’m completely incapable of on my own, and I can easily get myself tied in a knot if I try.
I remember the Lord telling me once in prayer when pondering such a thing, “I don’t need your treatment plan.” A therapist creates a treatment plan to work toward health with a client. The Lord was letting me know in not so many words that He had a far better idea of what growth I needed and how to accomplish it. It put me back in the spot of receiving from the Lord, which is a far better spot to be. The Holy Spirit is the Sanctifier. I’m not.
As we dig into the concepts of connection: 1. that we are chosen by the God of all creation to exist here now and are made to spend eternity with Him, 2. known more intimately by Him than we could ever know ourselves, 3. valued so totally by He who emptied Himself to redeem us and manifest the Father’s love for us, and 4. protected and provided for by the God of all creation, we are filled with such a sense of love, security, stability, and belonging that far surpasses anything we could ever hope for or imagine. It is exactly that deep and abiding unearned love that flowers into a virtue when responded to. If we try to do it on our own, it is an exercise in futility or even frustration. If we do have any success, we can so easily end up being proud of our humility.
It is Jesus who makes us into a gift to the Father by the action of the Holy Spirit. Of course, we are called to collaborate with that grace. We must receive it first. Regardless of if we are male or female, the soul is primarily receptive. The Lord is the Bridegroom and is the initiator. In receiving not just His love, but He who is Love, and responding in love to His love, we move from vice to virtue.
Let’s receive Him, His love, and take on His mind and heart of compassion towards ourselves; then, He will naturally flow through us to others.
May the Lord give you peace!
- Margaret
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