I was reading a section of What is Contemplation? By Thomas Merton today. This section convicted my greatly today:
If you desire intimate union with God you must be willing to pay the price for it. The price is small enough. In fact, it is not even a price at all: in only seems to be with us. We find it difficult to give up our desire for things that can never satisfy us in order to purchase the One Good in Whom is all our joy-and in Whom, moreover we get back everything else that we have renounced besides!
The fact remains that contemplation will not be given to those who willfully remain at a distance from God, who confine their interior life to a few routine exercises of piety and a few externally acts of worship and service preformed as matter of duty. Such people are careful to avoid sin. They respect God as a Master. But their heart does not belong to Him. They are not really interested in Him, except in order to insure themselves against losing heaven and going to hell. In actual practice, their minds and hearts are taken up with their own ambitions and troubles and comforts and pleasures and all their worldly interests and anxieties and fears. God is only invited to enter this charmed circle to smooth out difficulties and dispense rewards.
Does He really have our heart?
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