I find peace and solace in my parish's Adoration Chapel. Spending time at the Chapel forces me to be silent and to listen to God, it helps me relent as I surrender control of worries, fears, anxieties and doubts over to God's grace.
We all have knots, rocks and corrosive roots on our life roads that make us stumble, leave us dejected, sully us with fear, oppress us with doubt and at times in the wandering roadblocks we feel trapped, forsaken, alone and orphaned.
I tend to see God as being far off in the distance, already at the destination and I am struggling fiercely to rush from task to task, making each step a marathon - thinking if I can only accomplish an infinite number of tasks then I will reach the destination of peace and understanding.
I am a creative perfectionist - which means I can be laid back and go with the flow - and yet I am my harshest critic when it comes to being a taskmaster - every single second of every daily activity has to be accomplishing a task and accomplishing it well. I typically work myself to exhaustion before savoring complete and total rest - yet in the resting I feel guilty because - I should be doing something. I often feel like I have failed God because I'm not further ahead on life's plan with goals and plans - I have not accomplished the plans I have on my agenda: writing, editing, publishing, music projects, road trips, life agendas.
God gently reminds me with the power of the Holy Spirit that I need to stop feeling guilty about not accomplishing my temporal plans, and instead focus on just allowing the SPIRIT to guide me to the plans Christ has in store for me. When we clutch a dream or a goal too tightly we end up failing because we don't surrender it to God's will - and HIS perfect direction - when we become preoccupied with attaining the goal that we strip ourselves of enjoying it - we never find satisfaction. We are always jumping tiredly from one project to another before falling down, too exhausted to get up. Failure is not failure but a redirection opportunity to turn to God and say 'help me.'
I am exhausted, in something's gotta give mode. I am tired of my job and I want to pursue a career with my talents and yet none of the plans I work towards seem to come to fruition. I'm tired and I feel as though I'm failing. I have debts to pay and they are causing great anxiety. While it is easy to shake your head and say: 'you should have not taken out that debt,' life is not that simple. Both times I prayed over the situation and the loans were absolutely necessary given the circumstances. The loans were taken out to help with life journeys - including a cross country move...in the wake of the fact my father disinherited me and I had family members steal money from my mom. God knew we needed the funds and the loan provided for the expense...and yet now all I feel is fatigue and frustration...anger and worry...how long am I going to be in this debt...God please help me get out of it...What am I supposed to do with my life? I've worked hard...I followed the rules...why do I feel like I'm on this wandering road so far from my destination?
I went to the Chapel tonight with these questions heavy on my mind and my heart. Instead of starting my prayer session with petitions and litanies begging God for help with money and life circumstances I attempted an 8 minute session of contemplative prayer. The goal: to not think about anything accept dwell in the presence of God. My centering words in prayer: Trust, Surrender, Jesus.
I'll admit it is hard for me to just surrender my control. I am able to relax and to relent a part of my heart in prayer, but there is a shield I keep guarded. It goes back to past trauma and my current habit of always needing to think and plan and negotiate the next destination. I am so attune to having to be on the move, feeling insecure and desperate to accomplish tasks that the act of just sitting still without praying words or petitions or thanksgiving - I struggled to just be with I AM.
In the middle of my meditation as I strove to just 'be' - I heard the message : journey - it is not the destination but the journey...if you go through life only looking at accomplishing tasks - it will be one task to another task until you get to the final task: death.
I have continued to marinate on that message of the heart. Why can't we just enjoy the journey. Life is a journey - a pilgrimage - we are not in control of external circumstances and internally we find independence and true freedom only when we surrender to God. That does not mean we don't have control of life circumstances to a point - God wants us to live and exercise our choices - but it has to be in line with HIS will - otherwise we will not find satisfaction. St. Ignatius discusses the fact that we all have many ways we can follow God, and some are better ways of surrendering and living in Christ - but God gives us options and is content with whatever way we follow HIM as long as we follow him. The Ways of Knowing and Being - God is alive and is with us on the journey. Life is not about awards and merits, while those are great accomplishments and God wants us to do our best and to believe in our abilities, God's primary desire in our lives is that we seek relationship with HIM and enjoy the presence of Jesus in our lives.
Jesus is always with us. The Holy Trinity is all around us and the SPIRIT lives within us. We are loved and cared for. Every second is holy because every second Jesus is at work in the world. Every breathe we take, every word we speak and every action we have an opportunity to be in communion with God and each other. So something as simple as cooking dinner can be a holy event when we do it for the glory of Christ. The simplest act of kindness can be more important to God on your life resume than your executive business title. We are meant to enjoy life and sometimes even the crises become roadblocks where we learn to surrender, to love and actually help us persevere in our journey so when we reach the destination - it is not a check box accomplishment - but something richer, something deeper and more fulfilling.
Reaching heaven as our destination is wonderful, but our journey with God is right here and right now...in heartache, in joy, in sorrow, in jubilee, in grocery shopping, in a record deal - God is present in all things and wants to travel with us and be our friend, FATHER and guide.
I find the hardest part is tuning the reception to the right station. So often I go into prayer - asking God for things I am really demanding of HIM, instead of asking HIS will and trying to listen for solutions outside the scope of my planned list of options. How can God help us if we won't let him?
Later as I read the daily reading I was struck by God's sense of humor and insight:
As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up,
knelt down before him, and asked him,
“Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
Jesus answered him, “Why do you call me good?
No one is good but God alone.
Journey - there is the word again. Jesus did not accomplish HIS ministry without first journeying - reconciling HIMSELF to the people who rejected HIS father and ministering to the broken and wandering through some rough places, wilderness deserts and stormy waters. Jesus could have simply come down and said 'okay I'm going to die, then rise again and be done with it...salvation task accomplished,' but without the journey and the story of Jesus's life the destination has no meaning - no hope, no truth. It is simply the end, not the beginning. Of course the cross is the crux and the power and glory of God's grace and love and sacrificed perfectly and how we are forgiven, and its power would still exist but it would lose the depth of life and love - because Christ came not only that we should get to heaven - but that we start to learn how to live an abundant life as we journey on this earth.
Why do we call Christ 'good,' not because He simply is good (which He is), but because of His actions and works on the journey - which is an outward showing of grace. God does not need to prove His goodness, He is good - the journey reveals the goodness, just as grace is a revelation of love.
At the end of my prayer session I heard the word I dread the most: patience...Tonight though I welcome it as a friend on a journey.
Proverbs 8:22-31
"I was his delight day by day, playing on the surface of his earth; and I found delight in the human race."
Beloved we are called by God. The Holy Trinity seeks us and desires to have a relationship with us. Through Christ, we have been given the gift of an Advocate, the Holy Spirit - to help us hear God's voice - to comprehend HIS WORD. In Christ, God came down to earth as the Living Word. In all of creation, God spoke and HIS WORD formed the deep and the horizon. God's word is Life and our life is in God's love and grace. There is no life apart from the WORD.
The Word is not a book comprised of ink and ideas. While ink and ideas can ignite our imagination, God's WORD is in SPIRIT and the Holy SPIRIT is the author of truth, and life pours forth from the SPIRIT.
God's WORD is living. God's WORD dances with hope like light cracking through our brokenness, inviting us into HIS peace. The deeper we breath in HIS WORD, the barriers of fear and doubt start to splinter and collapse. God's WORD speaks LIFE into our situation, allowing us to cast our anxieties on HIM. When we seek God in HIS WORD our cup is always filled. When we surrender ourselves to accepting scripture and pondering it, asking the Holy Spirit to instruct us - we find a key the door we need to open, or a lock to prevent us from moving farther from God's will.
In the chaos of time, the space of seconds pounding into minutes and stealing my sanity, I discovered God's eternal peace in contemplating scripture. Reading scripture and pondering the WORD engages me in God's truth. It refocuses my anxieties away from my temporal problems and anchors me in God's eternal grace. Scripture opens the hearts of all who ask, knock and seek. People have fought fear, oppression, sin, violence, depression...since time began...sin seeks to steal our joy and taint our hope into fear and anger. In sin we only see death. Scripture recounts the negative affects of sin, helping us to identify the cause of our dis-ease...the brokenness that can only be healed by God. It helps us to realize that the temporal problems of this world are under God's concern and care - it reminds us that humanity has been struggling with the ravages of sin for perpetuity and in spite of that looming darkness, the fire of the Holy Spirit - God's light and grace, love and blessing, hope and desire for our countenance has always been present.
God delights in us. God cares for us. God walks beside us in trial. He never leaves our side, even in our darkest hour, he walks beside us as a friend and father.
It took me a long time to comprehend how God can allow suffering. How can HE truly love me when so much in my life is broken and all my hopes are crushed underfoot? Where is God? Why is HE silent. It took years of hurt, tears, and walking through my own Egypt to understand the greater grace is that God teaches us love in trial. God could just fix the problem or abandon us until we get our act together, but instead He chooses to say: 'Yes, because of sin, this world is messed up and you are facing horrible suffering, but I will not let it break you - I will refine you in this fire of trial and I will walk through that trial with you and make sure you overcome the enemy.'
That is a great grace! God cares that we are in pain, and wants us to confide in HIM. God gives us HIS Living Word, an extension of HIMSELF revealed in the Holy Spirit so that we can converse with him by words, and be assured of peace and rest in I AM.
I have faced immense trials and darkness in my 31 years, I have nearly given up, but every time my strength fails, I turn to HIS WORD and I find peace. Sometimes that peace comes with questions, sometimes I face down anger, and other times I find myself confused. Confused is not a word we like to use with God, but it is a word that is present. God does not confuse us - HE is forthcoming in TRUTH...confusion comes from our own human limitations to be willing to set aside our human blocks - the blocks of the flesh - that prevent us from trusting God's invitation by the WORD.
When faced with a verse or passage we don't understand this is a great blessing because it forces us to seek God - not to simply memorize HIS WORD or follow HIM like ants marching, but to truly seek after HIM, to listen to HIS voice and to enter into dialogue with HIM and with ourselves; Our true self at its fundamental center is in GOD - we are HIS children.
Christ gives us a wonderful example of studying scripture and communing with GOD even in trial. In the Passion of Christ, Jesus is the perfect intersection of human will in God and God's grace. In His agony - Jesus reminds us 'not my will, but YOUR will be done,' acknowledging that even in dark hours - we have to trust that God is in control, His ways our higher than our ways and that we cannot submit to unholy fear and the oppression of sin - God is with us. He has not forsaken us. With each step forward in the passion, Christ suffers all the brutal attacks of the world - attacks we too face: scorn, doubt, anguish, persecution...the list goes on...at times we feel we cannot take the pain any more - we speak death and forsake life in Christ. Jesus struggled to carry the cross and yet instead of giving up, he surrendered in accepting the pain without scorning God or himself - he willingly accepted it and gathered strength in the Father to continue towards the cross, each step closer to dying. Each step through a struggle and each fall, we get up and step closer to death on the cross - this is not death to be mourned, but a death of hope. For when we die in Christ we allow all the worry, anxiety, hate, fear, pride...to die and we open our hearts to life, to mercy, to peace and abundance.
Scripture speaks across time, because it intersects the human struggle and displays the awesome loving power of God. In scripture we can humble ourselves to God, able to recognize - it is okay to be broken, God is love and His love is at work even when we miss the mark. Not only does God love us and have mercy on His children - according to Proverbs 8:31 God delights in the human race.
The enemy of our soul wants us to feel forsaken and to question how God can be mindful of humans. The enemy tells us lies that God is seeking revenge against humanity for our sin and that God's wrath is in his presence. We carry the burden of extreme guilt for sin and struggle to accept forgiveness because the price Christ paid was so high. The flesh tells us that we need to pay God back and when we recognize our inability to ever pay the price in full the enemy steals our joy in salvation...
The LIVING WORD reminds us that God is on our side. He loved the world so much that He sent HIS only Son to live and die among us and suffer death on the cross so that we can be saved by the blood of the lamb. God is love. He is at work in our lives.
The hardest lesson is that LOVE is a presence in and of itself. What I mean by this statement is that love exists outside of temporal circumstances. It is easy to say that 'God doesn't love me, if he did I wouldn't be having financial problems...or any other temporal disaster.' While God does care about those issues - HIS love is for our soul and His actions of love in our lives are primarily to protect our soul and to lead us into closer relationship with us. God's love is fully manifested when we die in the flesh. God is still showering us with love even in difficult circumstances.
Example: Your parent is dying of cancer and you give them love and support during this crisis. Would anyone deny your love of the parent even if they die from the cancer? Of course not - the act of love is in giving of oneself to the peace of the other and support of the other. Love is not contingent on the temporal material manifestations...it is so much deeper in beauty and wealth than that.
God's grace is a fruit of love and in grace he grants us temporal help, and while this is a fruit of love - grace it itself does not fuel love - so grace my decide to answer a prayer, but that is because love bears the fruit of grace...the act of receiving is a grace...the act of love continues to run deeper than the grace...love is in and of itself the act of life in God and HIS being.
If you can take time to read scripture for at least five minutes a day. I enjoy resting in Christ with the daily readings from the Word Among Us. I also read the Psalms regularly. They speak to my heart and remind me - even in life's hurricane's, God is in control.
Exercise:
Take five minutes to read scripture then meditate on it by prefacing: Holy Spirit, speak Lord for your servant is listening.
