THAT is the proper condition of our life. Everything we do should have love as its principle and end. We should not just be contented with some worldly motives and goals which, by the way, are also important to be taken care of. But we should not get stuck in that level alone.
We must do everything out of love for God; that same love then compels us to serve everyone else. This way of living and working lets us enter the dynamic of real love—God's very essence and our true purpose.
We should not be contented with doing things and working only for some temporal and worldly goals, no matter how legitimate they are. We should not be contented with gaining technical achievement, for example. Nor should we be ok only with some economic gains, some political power and things of that sort.
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These motives can only give our dedication a short life-span. They often work only under favorable circumstances. And most likely, they tend to corrupt us. Without love for God and others as our motive, we simply pursue fleeting and empty goals that eventually feel like chasing the wind.
It is doing things with love for God and neighbor that would keep us going irrespective of the varying circumstances. It is this love that would unite us with the very power of God himself. We would not be depending solely on our human powers, even if also need to make full use of them.
That is why it is important that we be clear about the intention we have in everything we do. Let’s remember that nothing is good, true and beautiful, nothing is fair and just, nothing is perfect if it is not done with God and for God. In short, we need to refer all our acts to God. We have to make this affirmation very clear in our mind and do everything to make that ideal a reality.
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And so, a lot depends on our intention, because our intention is the very expression of who and where in the end we want to be. Do we choose God, or do we simply choose ourselves, or the world, in general? It’s actually a choice between good and evil.
We must realize that we must carefully guard our intentions, making them explicit and honing them to engage with our ultimate object: God.
We should try our best to shun being simply casual or cavalier about this responsibility. We can easily manipulate our intentions because they almost always remain hidden from the public. We must sincerely direct our intentions toward what is right.
We can easily fall into hypocrisy and deception, doing what can appear good externally but is not internally, since we could refuse giving glory to God, which is the proper intention to have, and instead feed and stir our vanity, pride, greed, lust, etc.
We need to actively purify our intentions, since we have to contend with many spoilers in this regard these days. In fact, we just have to look around and see how openly opposed many people are of directing their intentions to God.
To them, intentions are strictly personal and confidential matters that others do not have any right to meddle. While there is a certain truth to this claim, we have to remind ourselves that our intentions too are subject to a universal moral law.
