Thursday, April 30, 2015

What God Wants

Some things in life we must do.  If we want to stay alive in our bodies, we have to eat.  If we wish to keep living in these bodies, we have to keep breathing.  

We also are presented with matters of choice.  We make choices about mundane matters.  For those of us living in the first world, the vast majority of us make choices everyday about what we eat and drink.  

However, many homeless people in the first world often cannot eat whatever they like.  Additionally, very often in the first world we have choices which others elsewhere in the world do not have as luxuries.  For many people living in the third world, often they do not get to choose what to eat; they eat what they can get, if they get anything at all.  For some, they cannot even choose to eat, dying because they have not gotten enough to eat.  

Sometimes we are able to choose in which jobs we work.  However, even in the first world, when the economy is poor, we can only work in jobs which seem less than ideal to us.

Especially for those of us in the first world, usually we evaluate choices in life in terms of whether or not we want to do something.  If we want to do something, we do it.  If we don't want to do something, we don't do it.  

However, what if God wants us to do something which we don't want to do?  We can, and indeed should, pray to God to give us the grace and the strength to weather the storms and trials we must face, which we cannot avoid.  

However, what if we could avoid tribulation?  Understandably, we often want to escape it.  In such situations, what if we suspect that God wants us to undergo such trying circumstances?  Sometimes God tests us.  He wants us to show Him what is reflected in the absolute deepest recesses of our hearts.  In our most private, secret corners of our souls, do we wish to do God's will and submit to God, even if we have another, less painful option available to us? 

Under conditions in which we are presented with such formidable circumstances, which we could choose to avoid, but which we suspect God wants us to endure, we are being tested.  Do we truly want what God wants, or do we want only what we want?  

When confronted with the avoidable suffering to which God invites us, we can wisely choose to turn to Him.  We can become more than we have been: we can transcend our own narrow, short-sighted desires and plans.  Such a choice requires courage, yet such bravery is well-placed, since it reflects faith in God, who loves us infinitely, more than we can know and understand in this lifetime.  To trust in this way, one must think, pray, speak and act out of humility.  A humble, contrite heart, O Lord, you will not spurn.*  

Pray that your desire be conformed to God's will.  Pray that He transform what you want, so that it becomes what He wants.  Amen. 

* Psalm 51:19. 

Friday, April 10, 2015

Give Thanks Always

Recently I was walking along a path here at the hermitage.  About one hundred feet ahead of me I saw a deer, who seemed to notice me at roughly the same time.  He pranced swiftly, yet apparently with little effort, for he was gracefully moving and smoothly advancing in his path.  After a moment I realized that he was heading toward a brick wall, about four feet high.  For a person running such a wall as this would be an obstacle.  Yet I knew this buck would have no trouble scaling this wall.  In light of how it would be so difficult for a human being, I knew it would be remarkable, this physical feat I was about to behold.  Without breaking its stride, the deer leapt in a single bound up onto the grassy ground which began at the top of the wall.  In this seamless motion he continued taking his flowing steps.  I was grateful to God for such beauty in his creatures.  

With a bit more time, however, I meditated further upon what we have from God, namely, everything that is, which consequently includes much which seems less pleasant.  We see creatures which we do not appreciate as much.  We hear how others suffer.  We ourselves feel pain.  Do we thank God when we look upon things which are not our favorites?  Are we thanking God when we are undergoing tribulations?  Everything we encounter and experience presents an opportunity to draw closer to God.  When we feel challenged, we are called to grow, to become more than we have been.  We may, indeed often we do, wish to avoid such challenges, but to do so is often to turn from the invitation to evolve and, with God's help, to become capable of more than we had thought possible.  

When we let God work through us, He displays marvelous creations through us... yet often we choose to remain in our suffering rather than embrace it so that through it God can transform us into something wonderful.  Even under excruciating conditions, we are offered chances in which we can choose to learn.  Lessons await us in circumstances which seem dark and pointless.  Although at such times in our lives, little seems to make sense, at such junctures, if we can recognize and embrace the invitations for growth, wondrous landscape lies ahead beyond what initially seems to be too much for us.  

If we take such leaps of faith in God, after a time, we come to realize that through the trials we have been enduring, and the attendant pain we have been feeling, God has been calling us to be more than we have been.  We rest in the comfort of this reassuring knowledge, having been helped to see that He loves us as a Father and as a Mother, blessing us at all times, displaying wonderful sights in front of us at certain points, and at others depriving us of comforts.  As a parent is at times tender and at other times stern, so God is with us, presenting us with circumstances which are all gifts, which are to be for our benefit.*

Once we realize that God not only is with us always, but ceaselessly waits for us, patiently, and guides us for our benefit, even when it does not seem at first to be so, with time we will come to be more and more grateful to Him.**  Knowing that He works all things for our good, we come to thank Him more and more often.***  Under more and more types of situations, we render Him more and more praise and thanksgiving.  Eventually we should be thanking Him always for everything.****  Thus rejoice always.*****  This is Heaven.  

* Hebrews 12:3-11.  
** Matthew 28:20.
*** Romans 8:28. 
**** Ephesians 5:20. 
***** Philippians 4:4.