The Christian Journey

        When we are on earth, we need God because we have health issues to deal with, natural elements to confront, and most of all, sins to fight. After we get to heaven, we no longer need God because we already have him, and all the above-mentioned problems no longer exist. The Christian journey skips to its best part right after the first part.  

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.

God's Perspective Considered

        For God, there is no beginning, no end, for he is eternal. As I once blogged, view God as light and Einstein's theory of relativity shows that he must remain the same forever, be all over the universe at the same time, and for whom time stops. All this amazingly makes perfect sense. Therefore, it's a "mistake" to view Jesus' first coming into the world as something that happened 2,000 years ago and his second coming as something that might not happen for a long time from now. With God's perspective in mind, we might as well compress the events of the whole Biblical history, creation, man's fall, the Incarnation of Jesus, his Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension, and yes, the final judgment too, all into the present moment. Then we can respond to the Lord more urgently as we should.       

For God's Glory

        We want to be as holy as possible, shining the brightest in the world. Yes, we want to be the best ~ elitist you could even say. Why? Because God deserves it. No, we don't do it for our own sake. If others show up holier and shining brighter, we cheer. All for God's glory!

Best Trip Ever!

        I heard this morning that one person chose to go on a certain expensive trip because it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Then I thought that choosing to follow Jesus is also once in a lifetime in the sense that you get that opportunity only in your one lifetime. Since I choose to follow Jesus, my trip will be one-way and end in heaven, leaving me there to enjoy the Lord for all eternity! It's my prayer that all of us on earth will plan for this trip before going on any other trips.  

Wonderful Attitude

           This morning on Nation Public Radio, I heard about the sisters of Benedictines of Mary, Queen of the Apostles, for the first time. They are topping the Billboard classical charts with their albums of sacred music. Mother Cecilia, prioress of the abbey and the group's music arranger, was being interviewed on air. She talked about how her exposure to sacred music lifted her spirit to God, and made her think on eternal things, up out of the petty things of life. "Eternal things" ~ I immediately wondered how much time do we spend thinking on eternal things in place of the petty things of life. At the end, Mother Cecilia impressed me by saying, "The CDs are something God has allowed to happen. It's a wonderful thing insofar as it brings souls closer to God, and in the meantime helps us pay our debt, but other than that, life just flows along at the priory just the same way it did before. And that's the way we love it; that's the way we want. No tours, no concerts, you know? Just simple monastic life." Elsewhere I also read that earlier last year when one of the albums topped the charts for weeks, the sisters couldn't care less. Mother Cecilia said, "These CDs are absolutely non-essential to our life of prayer. It we hadn't recorded, or if we don't record again, it really wouldn't have any bearing, any effect on our life." What a wonderful attitude ~ dwelling on what's eternal and being detached from all that's temporal! 

       I'd also like to add that Mother Cecilia was a gifted French horn player of the Columbus Symphony, Columbus, MO, before she joined the Benedictines of Mary order. When that happened, people thought she was throwing her life away, wasting her talents. I like her thoughts expressed here too: "The funny thing with God is, when you give him everything, he takes that offering seriously, and he does as he promises: He gives a hundredfold." Amen. 

Wonderful Christian Life

        We can take advantage of every life situation to get close to God. Each situation provides us with opportunities to love, obey, honor, and glorify God, storing up treasures in heaven, and to shine as light of the world, drawing others to Christ. What wonderful living! How blessed are we to be able to serve God and enter heaven later! To make the most of our Christian life, aim for total union with God. 

Obedience and Peace

        After over nine weeks, my cough still hasn't completely left me. My doctor finally prescribed an antibiotic for me to take. Knowing that I am in God's hands no matter what, I see no point in worrying or projecting what might happen to me, and I remain peaceful. Rebelling against God always robs one of inner peace. Obedience (trust in this case) and peace go hand in hand with each other.

The Adoption Process

        Jesus looms large, challenging us to decide if he is true God or not. Once we believe that he is, we are challenged to decide if we are willing to surrender to him completely or not. To me, these are invigorating challenges, tests to meet in the adoption process of becoming sons and daughters of God the Father.