Who are you - before you accomplish something?

There is absolutely nothing you can do to improve your relationship to Life. Nothing. Your relationship is already the closest relationship you will ever have. God is closer to us than our breath because God is the very pure and grand and simple essence of our being. The relationship between God and man is already a relationship - and the closest relationship you can imagine. It is as close as original and reflection can be. There is such a crazy love that Life wants us always close, so close. Spirit wants us to be in the neighborhood all the time, because of the stuff we are made of: Spiritual ideas. Love knows us better than we do ourselves and is completely committed to us - because Love made us in the first place out of sheer joy. Look around in nature and see the same principles everywhere. A cardinal or a fox is little marvel in itself, and Love made them simply because Love can do it. Eugene Peterson translates Psalm 77:

"Once again I’ll go over what God has done,
    lay out on the table the ancient wonders;
I’ll ponder all the things you’ve accomplished,
    and give a long, loving look at your acts."

If you think that something needs to be accomplished by you to prove your worth think again. If you think you need to prove something, think again. Your worth does not depend on what you do. Your worth - our worth - is set by Life itself. Life itself is accomplishing everything and our great privilege is to observe closely what is happening in the world of infinite Love. Observing animals I get this point: We are what God made us to be, and that is enough. We are something before we get up in the morning, prepare for the day, with listening, prayer, and study.

We are something before the strivings start and we are something after they have proven to be too small to fill a whole life. We are something after retirement. We are something before we pass the exam. What matters is the symphony of Life itself, Life, and Life alone. I am convinced that we change the world by being what God wants us to be. Nothing more, nothing less. No strain, no stress, no striving, no zeal will ever top what God has already down, what God is already planting in you, the real you. Humility and simplicity hold the key to the sweetest peace you will ever feel, the peace of being. 

Recently I was driving over the John Greenleaf Whittier Bridge near Boston, and I was reminded of this poem by him, set to beautiful music in the Christian Science Hymnal:
Drop Thy still dews of quietness, / Till all our strivings cease; / Take from us now the strain and stress, / And let our ordered lives confess / The beauty of Thy peace.
(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 49:4)