Abiding in the Company of God

When we make an object, it is for a purpose. God, who is the Creator, made me for a purpose. What is that purpose? God loves me, and he created me out of love. I am but a being with the capacity to live as a mere creature. Yet God does not limit himself to wanting me to live as a creature. He raises me to a higher, supernatural state of life. God wants me to share in his own life. He wants me to live his very life: “Indeed, his divine power has bestowed on us everything necessary for life and devotion, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and power. Through these, he has bestowed on us the precious and very great promises, so that through them you may come to share in the divine nature” (2 Pet 1:3-4). The Second Vatican Council likewise says: “The highest dignity of man is his communion with God.” So God loves us so much that he wants us to live with him. All the gifts of this earth have been given to us so that they may help us live with God—everything we do in church and in our respective communities and groups.

Sadly, in this world there are people who live without knowing or realizing what God created them for. They live without seeking the company of God. Let them not be surprised at their eternal destiny, which risks being far from God if they do not change. There are even those who consciously perform acts that draw them away from God. They make a choice, preferring to satisfy themselves and to be far from God. Ordinarily, a student who does not prepare at all for his examination cannot pass it. We have an examination to pass at our death: that of the Last Judgment. Those who pass it will remain eternally in the company of God. So already here on earth, now, we must seek the company of God. Yet when people seek God, for many it is only to ask him for things. They want God’s gifts, not the God of the gifts. They are especially interested in what God is going to give them, not in God himself; and it is for this reason that when many do not receive what they expect from God, they abandon him, go to witch doctors, grow weak in their faith, and let go of their Christian commitment.

To seek the company of God, one must let oneself be seduced by him: “You have seduced me, Lord, and I let myself be seduced” (Jer 20:7). There are moments in our life when we feel consolations from God. There are people who can never willingly miss a retreat because God has seduced them and consoles them. When God seduces us, we ardently seek his company. Saint Paul, after the experience on the road to Damascus, no longer wanted to live without Jesus. The Letter to the Hebrews says: “We have indeed become companions of Christ” (Heb 3:14). We must pray, ask God, say to him: “Forgive me, Lord, seduce me, seduce me again, that I may fall in love with you, that I may fall in love with you once more.”

When we love someone, we seek their company. The lack of a good life of prayer in many people today bears witness to a lack of love for God: “But I know you—you do not have the love of God within you” (Jn 5:42). When someone says, “I no longer pray,” he means, “I no longer love God”; “I have difficulty praying” means “I have difficulty loving God.” So when I do not love God very much, I grow bored in his presence. We are usually bored before a stranger; we do not know what to say to him. But with a true friend, we can spend hours together. The true friends of God spend much time with him without growing bored. If I love God, the logical consequence is that I seek his presence and his company—not only to ask him for things, but beyond asking, to seek his presence: “The upright shall dwell in your presence” (Ps 140:14). Whoever loves God will find time for prayer, Adoration, the meditation of the Word, the sacraments, and so on. Jesus asks us to be united to him if we wish to bear fruit (Jn 15:5). Sin is the result of a life lived apart from God, or of drawing away from him. The success of evangelization is ensured by the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit acts greatly through a person who prays, who lives in the company of God. Pope John Paul II said in his Encyclical on the Holy Spirit: “The most common means of the manifestation of the Holy Spirit is prayer.” When inner problems increase in a Christian community, when zeal for evangelization diminishes in the group, it is proof that the leaders, or even the members, do not pray enough; they no longer seek much the company of God, but that of men. They therefore rely much more on the ideas of men than on those of God. If we seek the company of God, we are good disciples of Jesus.

Henri Bayemi