Conversion Cannot Be Rushed
Why don't we marry someone on the first date? Is it because we have trust issues or because a person is a mystery? There is something of our dignity wrapped in taking the discernment process slow. If we rush into a marriage it means we do not really care what marriage is nor do we really care who the other person is and what is best for them. Real love requires much of us. When we respect the other person we want to be sure they are the one. This requires time because we do not fall madly in love at first sight. Love is not a feeling but a sacrifice, even if the feelings make that sacrifice easier sometimes they will make it harder at others. What does this have to do with conversion? Glad you asked! Conversion is marriage to God!
Some many people misunderstand what it means to be Christian. The first thing people think of is morality. Many wince at the thought of trying to be someone they are not. This is never expected. It is the love that results from knowing God that transforms and strengthens us. From our baptism, we become the spouse of Christ, one flesh with his mystical Body. To be a Christian is to be married to Christ. So many live a loveless marriage with God. We should want at any given moment to do whatever it takes to live our love for Christ. Love is not a thing to be rushed. We cannot force anyone to fall in love with us. We can reveal the best parts of ourselves and then come those less desirable. As we court, the other having fallen in love with our best can understand the things that make loving us difficult. So it is with God if anybody can be a saint we can, it is a matter of love. God does not force us to change but he invites us to. Yes, there is difficulty; yes, it may feel like the world is out to get you; yes, we are a minority; no, people do not just wake up one day and decide to live for God instead of themselves.
In conclusion, we cannot expect goodness from others. Even though every good is worthy of good, and we are good and thus worthy of it; it is not our place to make people give it to us. God does not make us submit to His infinite love. The same applies to ourselves, we will not be saints in a day just as much as the saints that lives were not saints in a day. It is reductive to make sainthood about only moral perfection when at best it is really only a small part. If we are to fully realize our conversion we do so through love and love only. All morality flows from love, it is the only thing to transform us this grace, the actus of God's love. Like marriage, our love for God should transform every aspect of our lives even in the most intimate ways. God fulfills our every desire through love.
My beloved speaks and says to me:
“Arise, my love, my fair one,
and come away;
for lo, the winter is past,
the rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth,
the time of singing has come,
and the voice of the turtledove
is heard in our land.
