Proccupation With Self

"A poet has written, 'The desire to feel loved is the last illusion: let it go and you will be free." Just as the sunrise of faith requires the sunset of our former unbeleif, so the dawn of trust requires letting go of our craving spiritual consolations and tangible reassurances. Trust at the mercy of the response it recieves is a bogus trust. All is uncertainty and anxiety. In trembling insecurity the disciple pleads for proofs from the Lord that her affection is returned. If she does not receive them, shi is frustrated and starts to suspect that her relationship with Jesus is over or that it never existed.
If she does receive consolation, she is reassured, but only for a time. She presses for further proofs--each one less convincing than the one that went before. In the end the need to trust dies of pure frustration. What the disciple has not learned is that tangible reassurances, however valuable they may be, cannot create trust, sustain it, or guarantee any certainty of its presence. Jesus calls us to hand over our autonoous self in unshaken confidence. When the craving for reassurances is stifled, trust happens."

Brennan Manning
The Raggamuffin Gospel


"But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away..." JN16.7