If you didn’t catch the Aladdin reference, here you go. The joke ends at about 35 seconds in. Thanks and Gig’em.

“Do you have what it takes?”

The recurring trial of being a man; the question that can plague a man’s heart in the midst of suffering. This question has been on the soul of every man since he was a child, and it stays with him throughout his life from “Do I have what it takes to please my father” to “Do I have what it takes to be a Father or father?” We struggle with feeling inadequate, we are prideful, we beat ourselves up over our sins, and we make God into ourselves in the way that we judge ourselves.

I think about the way God looks at me often. I judge myself harshly and I am very unforgiving of myself. Similarly to Javert (Les Mis anyone?) I judge myself with human justice, and without divine love. In these moments where I perceive the nature of my God to be like mine, I remember my own earthly father. I remember the moments that he has told me that he is proud of me and that he loves me. His eyes are filled with love and his close-mouthed grin radiates joy. And who is this pride directed to? Why, Mr. Joshy of course.

Then I think of God the Father. If my own father, a man who makes mistakes can look at me with a love that moves me to tears, how then, must my God smile upon me? Should I die of happiness? How can I not possibly do what He asks? My God is a God who looks at me and says, “That’s my boy.” My God wants to give me everything.

God, certainly, has what it takes to love and to serve (see The Passion of the Christ, located in every Gospel), and if He is with me and I in Him, what can’t I achieve? May we live to imitate this love that the Father has given to us and to step up into the calling that God has placed on all of our hearts. Let us live our lives every day like the Father is pouring His love upon us like the dew fall.