This week’s theme is on purpose. Today, they are talking about being called to do something. Perhaps something out of our comfort zone, or that we don’t particularly wish to do. They distinguish between calls. If the call causes us to run away from God, then it surely wasn’t an authentic call *from* God. He would never call us to something which causes us to pull away from Him, since our supreme calling is to be His son or daughter. God’s call is always one which draws us in further to the Divine Life. It’s a good reminder for the discernment we should make about all of our activities.

Is this drawing me closer to the Lord? Is it pulling me away from Him? Am I growing in love? Or is my heart slowly being hardened?

Protect your heart. It’s one of the most human things about you. And one of the most precious. But you can’t protect it by putting it in a glass case on display. A heart can only survive if it is used and shared. It’s a muscle, and like any other muscle in the body, if it is not used, then it will atrophy. In fact, if a muscle is not used – is not stretched and broken – it cannot grow. It is in the healing process that a muscle becomes stronger and more useful to us. So we cannot fear using our hearts. We cannot fear heartbreak. Because heartbreak will definitely come. But if we allow forgiveness and God’s grace to heal our hearts, they will be stronger for it, and have a greater capacity for love than prior to our trials.

A good athlete strengthens all of his muscles. Particularly those he uses most in the exercise of his unique gifts, but he doesn’t forget that all of the muscles in the body need attention. So too is it with our hearts. If we want to be the most loving selves we can be, we should be willing to seek out love in different ways. Certainly, God will put certain things upon our heart and our unique gifts and abilities will draw us to certain ways of expressing love. But it never hurts to try out different expressions of love. You may surprise yourself with the new capacities of your heart.

I suppose my main point is that you should never fear to risk your heart. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Because our Father loves His children. How can we possibly doubt the depth and capacity of His love for us? Certainly no one’s heart has been broken and stretched than His by the constant denials, sins and rejections of His children than God Himself. Nothing can be a bigger heartbreak than to have One’s pure and completely good heart allow for the existence of sin in the world. But He did. And with every sin we commit, with every heartbreak we inflict, He shows us his endless capacity for forgiveness and love.

The Trinity, in whose Divine Life we hope one day to share, is a radical, reckless gift of self in love.

Love deeply.