Returning to God: The Beauty of Imperfect Devotion

Actually, just this morning I heard something very beautiful. So, St. John of the Cross spoke about this. He said that we may think that we sat in prayer for half an hour but it was a terrible prayer session because we were constantly distracted by our thoughts. We may think it's a terrible prayer session, but he said that the way I look at it when it happens is that a hundred different thoughts came, they distracted me away from God, but I gently took the step back and tried to stay with God. So these thoughts coming gave me a hundred opportunities to love God by turning towards Him again and again.

So even though the mind itself will judge and say that your mind was too strong at that point, actually if we are using that, even that is an opportunity to say, 'Yes, I got stuck, but I'm with you again, God.' And it may happen just ten seconds later and you notice and you say, 'Okay, here I go again. I was stuck again, but I return to you.' And here I go again, but I return to you. And isn't there a strange beauty in this process of returning to God every time, so many times? It is the way we look at this which changes our whole perspective.

So when the mind is distracting, then look at that as a beautiful prayer session where, in spite of the mind's hundred temptations, you return. You try to return at least a hundred times. Even if you were not successful, God knows about your intention to return to Him. So we are making a mistake somewhere in all of this, which is to think that this is about some sort of perfection. See that spirituality is some sort of perfection? It is never going to be perfection. It is just going to be this moment. What is my intention this moment? What is my intention?

If I handed this moment over to God, then I may feel that whatever my attempt is—I wanted to be open and empty for two hours, I only succeeded for ten minutes—but I kept those two hours aside for God, isn't it? And that is what is important, because nobody really understands the mechanics of this, what has to be released, what is pent up within us, you see, how that process will unfold. So all we can do is say that this life is yours, or this hour is yours, or this minute is yours, and try to be as true to that as possible.