Hold On! The Smallest Motion
Meshivat Nefesh #33
We’re all an amalgam of potential and damage, goodness and imperfection. It’s tempting to wonder why God chose to place us in such very trying circumstances—to be, as I once heard from a friend, “celestial beings having terrestrial experiences.”
But Rebbe Nachman taught:
“The smallest motion that one takes toward God against the resistance of the evil inclination is worth more than a thousand years of serving God without any yetzer hara, as the angels do.”
Instead of despising my lower inclination, I can see it as my valuable partner. I’m not looking to add to my challenges, but I can come to appreciate that it’s my human struggle that’s so very beautiful and valuable to my Creator. He doesn’t think less of me for having a lower inclination to overcome; quite the contrary. God is waiting for me to invest my dynamic and fiery lower self into the service of holiness. If I’ll only capture its force, it will be my biggest ally and asset.
Beloved God,
Sometimes I have a hard time accepting
myself as I am.
I would like to be further along the path
to You
than I am right now.
Help me to realize that the service
that I push myself to offer from my place, right now
as I am at this moment,
is exactly what you want from me.
(Based on Likutey Moharan II:49)