Faith in God Works

        I am pretty much back to normal and resumed attending daily Mass this morning. As Jesus indicated to his disciples in today's Gospel reading from Mark 8, without faith we can have eyes and not see, ears and not hear. He made me see that if we have faith, everything will be well. This is the theory, logic, also a simple formula that always works. Faith makes us follow God, and since God can never lead us astray, everything works out well at the end. The ultimate example: Faith in Christ leads to eternal life.  

Conscience Examined

        Conscience is like a clear window pane God implants in each one of us at our birth. The pane gradually gets soiled and stained by the sins of our world, losing its clarity over a period of time. Now the person no longer sees clearly what's right and what's wrong. God is the one who can wipe it all clean again if you give him the go-head. While he is at it, ask him to clean out whatever filth and dirt your muddy conscience has allowed into your heart and mind as well, and you'll be clean all over again. This was Jesus' mission when he came into the world, for the Lord specializes in making all things clean.     

To Your Heart's Content

        Communion experience. I was amazed and thrilled to realize what the Lord can do with us. If you let yourself be his entirely, he can mold and shape you until you become a totally happy, free person, enjoying him and the world.

Relaxing in God

        I still have one more day to go on my antibiotic, but my cough is almost gone. I attended Sunday morning Mass, feeling God refreshing me once again. Letting go in God relaxes the body, mind, and spirit. How good it is to have the Lord at our service anytime we wish to relax! 

Plan for Living

       First things first:

       (1) Awareness ~ know that you're only passing through this world. 

       (2) Action ~ make sure you'll enter heaven after this life ends.                  

       (3) Pullback ~ relax and enjoy living.

      Note: People do not enjoy living because they jump to step 3 without going through the first two steps in order.

On loving Others

        The Lord wants us to see him in every fellow human being so that we may treat all with love and respect. I got on this because I saw how easily old folks got ignored by others. It is Jesus' commandment that we love our neighbor as ourselves. One caution though: we love others, but not be attached to them, for we attach ourselves to God alone.

Unbelievers Give Reasons

         Many people are not ready for Jesus, the most basic reason being not ready to give themselves up yet. In two cases I ran into, the reasons given me were not what I had expected. 

         Case one ~ the person told me that he was a businessman and he's afraid that should he accept Jesus, he'd have to cease being dishonest in his dealings with others, and that would make it hard for him to conduct his business. Here's an honest answer, but his decision made me lose all my respect for him. 

         Case two ~ I was to give the person some literature or simple prayer cards. He didn't want to take any because he said that should he find the material uninteresting, he would have difficulty in dumping any of it ~ apparently, he associated the material with God and felt that discarding it might offend him. Here's a person believing that God might be real, but didn't want have anything to do with him. He's not quite being logical, but there's hope for him. 

            Since God simplifies us, unbelievers are more complicated than believers.    

Sure Protection

        We may feel pretty secure inside our own home, but looking down from an airplane, you see only the roof of our house over our head. Seeing the earth from the satellite further shows how exposed and vulnerable our earth is in the vast space. Physically, we have little protection. However, spiritually, things are definite. God sees our hearts clearly. When we stay away from him, we can lose his protection; but if we remain with him, we have complete protection. 

Muddy Thinking

        News today: Virginia's same-sex marriage ban has been ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge. My thoughts. God made man and woman for the purpose of procreation ~ that's why marriage is reserved for the union between a man and a woman and considered a sacrament in the Church. To think that God also sanctions other types of "marriages" is muddy thinking. Pro-abortion people are also muddy thinkers. They question that life begins at conception. I question, if not, how you can explain the growth of an infant in the mother's womb from the very beginning. They argue that the fetus is not a person or don't want to acknowledge that abortion is murder, but hiding behind words and legalities does not alter the truth. Considering that the infant is a part of the mother's body is another example of muddy thinking. The muddiest thinking of all has to be thinking that we can look away from God, deviate from his intended purposes, and still be all right. 

Full Surrender

        Giving our will to God is surrendering to him, but we can specifically surrender all the things difficult for us to control too ~ for example, impatience, anger, unforgivingness, our hang-ups, obsessions, prejudices, painful memories and even disturbing dreams. When we're willing to let them go, the Lord removes them from us.