Book 3, Chapter 8: Acknowledging Our Unworthiness in the Sight of God.
Chapter Focus: Have you ever wondered what God sees when looking at us? In this short chapter, the Disciple sees himself as God sees him. And it’s not a pretty picture. There’s a lot of dirt there. I think about when our kids were four or five and would come in after a day in the sand and heat and dirt. They had dirt on top of their dirt. Even after taking a bath we would find more dirt in their hair and ears and between their toes.
Here, Thomas gives us a more debased reflection of what he sees as he imagines God looking at him. He acknowledges himself as nothing but “dust and ashes” and cannot get clean without God’s unfailing help. God needs only to look at us (Ps 32:8) for us to take on meaning and become the apple of His eye (Ps 17:8). We receive interior consolation as disciples when we humble ourselves and acknowledge our unworthiness – then we can readily experience our Lord’s love for us.
Chapter 8, In Short.
1. I will speak to my Lord, even though I am but dust and ashes.
2. Your love freely guides me and sustains me.
3. Even though I am unworthy of all Your benefits, Your bountiful and infinite goodness never ceases to do good.
Scripture Memory Prayer: “Keep me as the apple of Your eye; hide me in the shadow of Your wings from the wicked who despoil me.” (Ps 17:8-9)
Question: What do I look like from God’s perspective?
Key Quote: [I]f You suddenly look upon me, immediately I am made strong, and filled with new joy.
The Text of Chapter 8: Acknowledging Our Unworthiness in the Sight of God.
I will speak to my Lord, even though I am but dust and ashes (Gn 18:27). If I think more of myself than this, behold You stand against me, and my sins bear witness to the truth, and I cannot deny it.
But if I am humble myself, and acknowledge my own nothingness, and shy away from all self-esteem, and grind myself into the dust, which I am, Your grace will be favorable to me, and Your light will be near to my heart. And all my self-esteem, however little it may be, shall be swallowed up in the depths of my nothingness, and shall be lost forever.
There You show me to myself, what I am, what I was, and from where I have come: I have been so foolish and ignorant (Ps 73:22). If I am left to myself, behold I am nothing, I am all weakness. But if You suddenly look upon me, immediately I am made strong, and filled with new joy. It is a great marvel that I am so suddenly lifted up, and so graciously embraced by You, since, by my own weight, I am always sinking to the bottom.
2. This is the doing of Your love which freely guides me and sustains me in so many necessities, which guards me also in great dangers and snatches me, as I may truly say, from innumerable evils. For truly, by loving myself impurely, I lost myself, and by seeking and sincerely loving You alone, I found both myself and You, and through this love I have brought myself to yet deeper nothingness: because You, O most sweet Lord, deal with me beyond all I deserve, and above all which I dare ask or think.
3. Blessed are You, O my God, because though I am unworthy of all Your benefits, Your bountiful and infinite goodness never ceases to do good even to ingrates and to those who are turned far from You. Turn us to You, Lord, that we may be grateful, humble, and godly, for You are our salvation, our courage, and our strength.