To Be Free is To Accept What You Haven’t Chosen

The freedom to choose from among many options is certainly important but one ought to understand that there is another twist to that, one that spares you many-a heartache and frustration. At first glance, this path is one that is less desired. It is poorer and humbler but when one comes down to it, it is the more usual route. Moreover, it yields immense human and spiritual fruits. Freedom is not only the ability to choose but also to accept what we have not chosen.

Let me highlight the significance of this way. The noblest and most fruitful act of freedom resides, before anything else, in acceptance rather than in domination. Man shows the greatness of his freedom when he transforms reality, but more so, when he confidently embraces the realities that each day brings.

It is natural and easy to accept pleasant situations even if we didn’t really look for them. Obviously, problems start when we must confront what is painful or the disagreeable; yet it is precisely these moments that urge us to “choose” what we do not like or what we could have avoided at all costs. Here lies the paradox of our existence: we cannot be truly free if we do not accept that we cannot be so all the time!

It is very important to consider that whoever desires true interior freedom must train himself to gladly accept the multitude of things that seem to oppose it: personal limitations, weaknesses, helplessness, difficult situations, or extremely repugnant tasks that entail facing up to situations that are beyond our control. The truth is, the situations that truly test our faith are those that we cannot control.[17] Here are a few examples.

Rebellion, Resignation, Acceptance

Before we go on, let us define some terms.

There are three possible attitudes one can have towards life, self, and those apparently negative situations.

The first is rebellion. Here, one refuses to accept himself. He rebels against God, who made him that way, or against life for allowing this or that event to happen, or against society.[18] Rebellion is the first natural reaction towards suffering. However, it solves nothing; it can only pile evil upon evil and therefore become a source of desperation, violence, and resentment. Romanticism in literature extols the rebellious spirit but it just takes a little common sense to see that rebellion never comes up to anything good. It only increases and propagates the evil that it tries to remedy.

Resignation comes after rebellion: I resign myself to a situation because I realize that I cannot change it. Compared to rebellion, resignation is a sign of progress, in the sense that it is a less aggressive and a more realistic attitude. However, it is not enough to be resigned. Resignation may be a philosophical virtue but it can never be a Christian one because it is wanting in hope. Resignation is nothing more than a declaration of helplessness. One will have to undergo this phase but he cannot remain there forever.

Acceptance is the attitude worth aspiring for. It is an interior disposition that differs from that of resignation. Acceptance brings me to say YES to an apparently negative reality because a voice within me says that something good is going to come out of this. Hope steps into the picture and so I can say YES to what I am, despite my failings, because I know that God loves me, because I trust that the Lord will fashion splendid things from my miseries. I can also say YES to the worst and most frustrating human realities because, in the words of St Therese of Lisieux (cf. John of the Cross): “Ever since I have known Love’s mighty power, thus hath it wrought its work within my soul—whatever it findeth there, or good or ill, it turneth all to gain.”[19] The ultimate difference between resignation and acceptance lies in the attitude of the heart. In the latter, an objective situation may not change but in the heart nestle—at least gestation stage—the virtues of faith, hope, and charity. For instance, accepting my miseries is to trust in God who made me the way I am. This act of acceptance implies faith in God, confidence, and love because in trusting, one already loves. The presence of faith, hope, and charity gives merit to acceptance. It endows it with scope and fruitfulness beyond imagining. For, as long as there is some faith, hope, and charity (and we do not tire of saying this), one spontaneously opens up to divine grace and welcomes it. That is why God never gives grace in vain: it always yields extraordinary fruit to the one who receives it.

God is a Realist

Let us now recall some points in our lives wherein we had to undergo this transition from rebellion to acceptance, which must have certainly been hard because we had to “choose what we have not chosen.”

Logically, we start with ourselves. Let us briefly consider that loving ourselves is a requirement to attaining full self-acceptance and yet we are so slow at learning this.

A first observation: in life, what we can do is not as important as what God can do if we allow him to act. The great secret of spiritual fruitfulness and growth is learning to allow God to act. Jesus says, Without me, you can do nothing. For divine love is infinitely more powerful than anything that can be achieved through good judgment or effort alone. Thus, to allow God’s grace to act in us, we must say YES to who we are and what our present circumstances are.

God is a realist. His grace does not act on what is imaginary, ideal, or dreamt of, but on what is real and concrete in our existence. My daily life may not be brilliant but it is the only place where God’s grace can touch me. The person God loves is not the person “I want to be” or “should be,” but simply ME. God does not love ideal or virtual persons; one can only love real and specific beings. He does not care about painted plaster images; he cares about us, sinners that we are. In the spiritual life, we sometimes foolishly waste time complaining that we are not “this” or “that,” lamenting over this defect or that limitation, and imagining all the good we could do if we were someone else, someone less handicapped or more talented or more virtuous. We can go on and on but we are just wasting time and energy and hinder the Holy Spirit from working in our hearts.

Quite often, it is not our sins or mistakes that impede the action of grace but our rather conscious refusal to accept our frailties or our situation. To “set that grace free” and allow it to work deep and spectacular changes, it is at times enough to say YES. A YES inspired by trust in God, a YES to things that we have always inwardly rejected. I do not realize that I am tying the Holy Spirit’s hands if I do not admit that I have this weakness, if I do not admit that I am scarred by a past incident, or that I have fallen into this or that sin. He can influence my life only to the extent that I accept him. The Holy Spirit never acts without the cooperation of my freedom and if I do not accept myself as I am, I prevent the Holy Spirit from making me a better person.

Similarly, the Holy Spirit cannot positively act upon and transform my relationships if I do not accept others as they are and if I spend my life demanding that they measure up to my expectations. We shall return to this point later.

All these attitudes lead to nothing because they reject reality, being rooted in a poor sense of faith and hope and consequently a lack of love for God that shuts out grace and paralyzes divine action.

Self-acceptance and the Desire to Change

We just reminded ourselves of the need to “accept ourselves as we are,” with our miseries and limitations. We may argue: Is this not a sign of laziness or passivity? What about wanting to improve, change, and move ahead? Doesn’t the Gospel invite us to be converted? You therefore are to be perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect.[20]

Of course, we want to be better. To do this, we must tirelessly work at self-mastery; and to neglect this is to neglect life. A person who does not want to be a saint will not become one. God gives what we ask for—no more, no less—but, to be a saint, we must accept who we are. These two attitudes seem to contradict each other yet we must accept our limitations without giving in to mediocrity; we should nurture the desire to change but without rejecting our weaknesses. In other words, we must accept ourselves.

The secret is very simple: we cannot work any change for the better if, in the first place, we do not accept reality. This is also about the humility to recognize that we cannot change through our efforts alone and that all progress and accomplishments are gifts of divine grace. I will not have the grace to change if I do not desire it; but to receive the grace that will change me, I must first embrace and accept myself as I am.

Looking at Ourselves Through the Eyes of Another

Self-acceptance is harder than it looks. We have pride, low self-esteem, and the fear of being unloved deeply rooted in us, and this is seen in how badly we take our falls, mistakes, and frailties: they demoralize and breed in us guilt and anxiety.

I think we cannot truly accept ourselves unless we see ourselves the way God sees us. To love ourselves, we need the mediation of the One, who says in the Book of Isaiah, You are precious in my sight, and honorable, and I have loved you. [21]Young girls usually think they are ugly, which is strange, because many girls who think that way are really very pretty. Nevertheless, a girl begins to realize that she is not as horrible as she thought she was when, one day, a young man gazes at her with tenderness.

In other words, we need to have another person looking at us so that we may love and accept ourselves. This look may be that of a father, a friend, or a spiritual adviser. Behind these we recognize the gaze of our father God, which is the purest, truest, most loving, and the most hopeful in the world. And this is the best reward we can get from persevering in prayer. One day, such a person will sense that Gaze resting upon him; and he will feel so loved and thus receive the grace of self-acceptance.

This has an important consequence: when man turns his back on God, he sadly deprives himself of the real possibility of loving himself; and the person who does not love himself is one who has turned his back on God.[22] In Bernanos’ Dialogue of the Carmelites, the old prioress tells the young Blanche de la Force, “Don’t ever hate yourself. One cannot hate herself without offending God who is in us.”

I would like to end with a passage from Henri Nouwen’s book, The Return of the Prodigal Son : “For a long time, I have considered my negative traits as virtue. I have been warned so many times against pride and vanity that I came to the point of thinking that self-loathing was a good thing. Now I realize that the real sin is to deny God’s primordial love for me, to disregard my original goodness. For if I do not rely on that first love and that original goodness, I lose touch with my authentic self and I self-destruct.”[23]

The Freedom to Be Sinners and the Freedom to Be Saints

When we discover that marvelous light of God’s glance, we experience great freedom. A double freedom, so to speak: that of being sinners and that of being saints.

As regards the first, it is obvious that we do not go around sinning and disregarding the consequences. This would not be freedom, but irresponsibility. What I mean is that our sinful condition does not annihilate us. In a way, we have a “right” to be miserable, a right to be what we are. God knows our weaknesses and frailties but he does not condemn or get scandalized by them. As a father has compassion on his sons, the Lord has pity on those who fear him; for he knows what we are made of, he remembers that we are dust.[24]As he looks upon us, God invites us to conversion, to spiritual progress, and to holiness. Aware of our personal limitations, we feel “pressured” when we have to do things while others watch. And when we judge that our performance does not come up to par, we become guilty and dissatisfied with ourselves. But when we see ourselves as but poor sinners, then we don’t have to feel guilty about our very existence. Many feel this way, albeit unconsciously. But God’s gaze does not make us anxious. He grant us the “right” to be ourselves and to make mistakes; and he frees us from the tension that all too often grips us, a tension that comes, not from him, but from our muddled minds, our feeling “pressured” to be something other than what we are.

In the social sphere, we are constantly pressured to meet others’ expectations or what we imagine those expectations to be; and this can be so exhausting. This world has cast aside Christianity, its dogmas, and commandments because it is a “guilt-ridden” religion. Still, we have never felt as much guilt as we do today. Young girls feel guilty for not being as beautiful as the Super-Model-of-the-moment, and men for not being as successful as Bill Gates. Contemporary culture’s role models are even more difficult to emulate than Jesus’ call to perfection: Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light. [25]

Under God’s gaze, we are relieved of the pressure to be “perpetual winners.” We can have peace of mind. We don’t have to exert constant effort to put our best foot forward or to spend a huge amount of energy to build an “image.” We can simply be ourselves. There is no better stress reliever than this: to be like little children who rely on the tenderness of their Father who loves them as they are.

It is very hard to accept our weaknesses because we believe that these will deprive us of love: if I fail in this or that, then I don’t deserve to be loved. Living and moving under God’s gaze makes us realize that this is not so. Love is gratuitous and not “merited.” Our frailties do not stop God from loving us. Rather, he has freed us of that dreadful burden to be constantly in “top shape” in order to be loved.

But even if God’s gaze allows us to be the poor sinners that we are, it also challenges us to bravely struggle to be holy. We have the right to aspire for the highest form of holiness because God can and wants it to happen. He will never allow us to be imprisoned by our mediocrity or condemn us to sad resignation. We always have the hope to move ahead in love. God can make a saint out of a sinner: His grace can work that miracle and one ought to have unlimited faith in the power of His love. A person may fall every day but he always gets up and says, “Lord, thank you, because I am sure you will make a saint out of me.” This pleases the Lord enormously and that person will soon receive what he asked for.

Our attitude towards God, therefore, must be calm and even “laid back,” accepting ourselves and our weaknesses, but with boundless trust and determination to move forward because the power of grace is backing us up. St Faustina’s spiritual diary magnificently expresses this idea.

“I wish to love you more than anybody else has. Despite my misery and smallness, I have firmly anchored my soul on the abyss of your mercy. My God and my Creator! In spite of my great miseries, I fear nothing and I nurture the hope to eternally sing my song of praise. Let no soul—including the most miserable one—ever doubt that, as long as one lives, one can be very holy. For great is the power of divine grace.”[26]

Perceived Limitations and Deep-seated Doubts

All that we have seen eschews the faulty kind of self-acceptance—that we should be bound by our limitations that are, more often than not, a figment of our imagination. Our upbringing, personal failures, setbacks, and meager trust in God have made us biased about ourselves: “You’ll never make it.” “You never do anything right.” And we can be so convinced that we will never achieve anything or ever be capable of facing certain situations. We say, “I can’t,” “Things will never change,” or “I’ll never get out of this fix.” But these words have nothing to do with the kind of self-acceptance that we just discussed. They are rather the result of our wounds, fears, low self-esteem, and lack of trust in God; and so it is worth unburdening ourselves of them. To accept one’s self means embracing our strengths and our liabilities while developing our real talents and potentials. And so, before saying, “I can’t do this,” it would be good to make out if this idea is born of healthy realism or a psychological delusion.

Our subconscious has certain guilt-inducing mechanisms that prevent us from pursuing healthy aspirations and opportunities that would make us truly happy. These may also be brought about by the idea that God is systematically depriving us of all that is good in life. This has nothing to do with spiritual realism and accepting our limitations. God wants us to break out of the prison of our fears and complexes even if He may sometimes require some sacrifice and renunciation from us. He wisely encourages us and wants us to embrace all the good things that He has in store for us. And if there is an area that’s completely free of prohibition, it is that of holiness. Don’t confuse holiness with outward signs of perfection, heroism, or impeccability because sanctity, properly understood, is a way of endlessly growing in love for God and neighbor. In this we can be assured that everything is possible, as long as we don’t get discouraged or resist the action of grace in us.

Not everyone has the makings of a hero but, by grace, we have the makings of a saint the moment we put on the baptismal robe to receive the sacrament that makes us children of God.

We Start Accepting Others When We Start to Accept Ourselves

There is a profound, two-way connection between accepting one’s self and accepting others. The two nurture each other.

Sometimes, we do not accept others because, deep down, we do not accept ourselves. He who is not at peace with himself is necessarily at war with others. My rejection of self breeds uprightness, dissatisfaction, and frustration that I frequently take out on others, who become the scapegoat of my inner conflicts. When we are in a bad mood, we are usually unhappy with ourselves and tend to make others pay for it! Etty Hillesum writes, “I have gradually come to realize that on those days when you are at odds with your neighbors, you are really at odds with yourself. ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.'”[27]

One who shuts others out and makes no effort to love them as they are will never experience the deep self-reconciliation that he so needs. He will always be the victim of his own severity, prejudice, and meanness of heart.

By Jacques Philippe, from Interior Freedom, pp. 28-44
Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash