Divine Providence and My Stupidity

Divine Providence is the way God guides all things with Wisdom, Love and Power to reach the purpose for which he designed them. CCC 321

This is so liberating – see – last night I was feeling like a caged animal because I can’t exercise with this muscular skeletal problem that causes breathing issues – but I thought – sure I can do some simple exercises – so I did and it was simple – and it was dumb as…because I cant breathe today. Idiot, idiot, idiot…Why do I do such stupid things. Then I reflected on the multiplicity of stupid and even worse sinful things I say and do: idiot, idiot, idiot. But even my stupidity and even my sin are not more powerful than the Providence of God who works all things, even my stupid choices, and my sins for my good if I love Him. Oh there are consequences, physical, moral and spiritual, but we never have cause for despair because God can even work our bad decision and even our sinful decisions for our greater good and the greater good of others and the whole world. That doesn’t give me license to do stupid or sinful things, but it does mean that I don’t have to be perfect. I can be imperfect with the will to better and God will take care of the rest.

Excessive sadness and discouragement over our bad decisions are not good and we must not view our own faults too tragically because God is able to draw good from them. Thérèse of the Child Jesus loved greatly this phrase of Saint John of the Cross: “Love is able to profit from everything, the good as well as the bad that It finds in me, and to transform it into Itself.” Our confidence in God must go at least that far: to believe that He is good enough and powerful enough to draw good from everything, including our faults and our infidelities. When he cites the phrase of Saint Paul, Everything works together for the good of those who love God, Saint Augustine adds: “even sins”! Of course, we must struggle energetically against sin and correct our imperfections. When we have been the cause of some evil, we must also try to rectify it to the extent that this is possible. But we must not distress ourselves excessively regarding our faults because God, once we return to Him with a contrite heart, is able to cause good to spring forth, if only to make us to grow in humility and to teach us to have a little less confidence in our own strength and a little more in Him alone.

So great is the mercy of the Lord that He uses our faults to our advantage! Ruysbroek, a Flemish mystic of the Middle Ages, has these words: “The Lord, in His clemency, wanted to turn our sins against themselves and in our favor; He found a way to render them useful, to convert them in our hands into instruments of salvation. This should in no way diminish our fear of sinning, nor our pain at having sinned. Rather, our sins have become for us a source of humility.” Let us add also that they can just as well become a source of tenderness and mercy toward others. I, who fall so easily, how can I permit myself to judge my brother? How can I not be merciful toward him, as the Lord has been toward me? Accordingly, after committing a fault of whatever kind, rather than withdrawing into ourselves indefinitely in discouragement and dwelling on the memory, we must immediately return to God with confidence and even thank Him for the good that His mercy will be able to draw out of this fault!

We must know that one of the weapons that the devil uses most commonly to prevent souls from advancing toward God is precisely to try to make them lose their peace and discourage them by the sight of their faults… Let us understand this: For the person of goodwill, that which is serious in sin is not so much the fault in itself as the despondency into which it places him. He who falls but immediately gets up has not lost much. He has rather gained in humility and in the experience of mercy.