Why don’t I love Jesus? I don’t love Jesus because I don’t know Jesus.
Why don’t I know Jesus? I don’t know Jesus because I really don’t want to know Jesus.
I don’t know Jesus because I don’t take the effort to spend time with Him. I don’t listen to His voice and I don’t share my heart with Him. I don’t know Jesus because my prayer is dead. I don’t know and love Jesus because my relationship with Him is either non-existent and if it exists, it is superficial.
If I loved him previously, but I don’t love Him in the present moment, it is because I have lost touch with Him in the present moment. Because I am not putting in the effort to know Him anymore, like I am putting in the effort to know the person or thing with which I am head over heels in love with at the moment.
Or perhaps, I don’t love Him anymore because He has become to me merely a stimulating intellectual pursuit. Because He has become to me merely a profession. He has perhaps become to be a badge of identity. But He is no longer to me the living God with whom I am in an intimate relationship anymore. Because He has become to me merely a theory I talk about and discuss, but has ceased to be a real person I love.
I don’t love Him anymore because He has become to me a lifeless picture on a wall. Because my relationship with Him has become an obligation, rather than my greatest opportunity, pleasure and desire. Because my relationship with Him and my prayer has become a box ticking exercise.
I don’t love Him anymore, because I no longer want to know Him, and only want what He can do for me. Because it is no longer Him that I seek and want, but only the things that He can do for me. He is no longer the end that I seek, but merely a means to my ends.
“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” [Mathew 6:21]
If I don’t love Him anymore, it is not because He does not love me anymore, but because I no longer love Him. I don’t love him anymore because although He may be God, he is no longer my Lord and my God [John 20:28]. Because He is no longer the desire of my heart and thus the God of my heart.
So What Is The Solution?
So what is the solution to this? We are often tempted to think that the solution is (1) to mindlessly say the prayers we think we are supposed to say, so that we fulfill our duty or (2) to wait until we are inspired to pray and then we will automatically pray well.
However, both these extremes are misleading. The solution is to do what you are supposed to do and to let the natural results of your actions follow automatically.
The solution is to make a decision to make Jesus the most important part of your life and to put it into action. The solution is to spend time alone with Jesus as you would with the person you love the most and with whom you would want to spend intimate time with.
Tell Him what is on your heart and mind. Tell Him your worries. Tell Him your hopes. Tell Him your temptations. Tell Him the sin that is on your mind. Tell Him your desires – your real desires and not what you think He wants to hear. Tell Him your anguish. Tell Him your frustrations – even if you are frustrated with Him. Share with Him your anger – even if you are angry with Him.
Be silent and listen to Him.
Take His word, read slowly and think about it. Don’t be in a rush. Let Him lead you.
Pray your favourite prayers slowly, thinking about the content of the prayers without just mouthing the words when your mind is elsewhere. This will doubtless happen continually, but when you become aware of it, bring your mind back and continue praying with attention.
When you go to Mass, participate with your full attention and your full mind and heart and receive Jesus after preparing your heart. You are receiving God almighty. Don’t treat Him as a piece of bread. Treat Him as God.
When you go to confession, lay your heart out and confess everything, especially the things you least want to confess. Don’t make a farce out of it. You don’t go to confession to prove how good you are. You go to confession to open your heart and your disease to Jesus, so that He can heal you.
Put away distractions and do this whether you feel like doing it or not, with as much focus as you can manage.
The solution is to share your heart with Him and to listen to his heartbeat. The solution is to live with Jesus as your most important goal. The solution is to make Jesus the end you seek and to stop using Him as a means to an end. Then you will enter into communion with Him and your heart will be set on fire with love for Him.
One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was lying close to the breast of Jesus [John 13:23]
Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction [God is Love / Deus Caritas Est 1]
It’s really so simple, Personal and real.
It’s a reflective read- focusing on action.
Thank you author ☺️
It is a pleasure Meljin. Thank you for the supportive comment.