Do I measure up?

In Matthew, Jesus tells the parable of the bridegroom and the ten virgins.  Jesus warns, “Stay awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour”. (Matthew 25:1-13) This warning is hitting close to home these days as I pray for my brother who, from most reports, is close to that hour. 

Parables of judgment almost always seem to make me nervous.  I worry; am I measuring up?  How do parables of judgment fit with grace?

I have up times in my relationship with God.  And I have down times.  Times where I feel like God is distant and I can’t reach Him.  I sometimes wonder….  If Christ returns during one of my down times, what happens?  Will I be one of the virgins who didn’t bring any oil for their lamps?  Will my faith be sufficient?

It seems my faith (my oil) requires constant replenishing.  I worry, will I have enough?  Yet nowhere have I ever heard God say, I’m only going to give you this much faith, so you’d better hoard it.  It seems the supply of faith available to us is inexhaustible.  So why do I have the fear?  Faith is definitely a choice.  It is both incredibly powerful, but also fragile.  Worry tends often to squeeze the faith and hope out of my life.  Worry can rob us of our faith.  When we worry, we lose our joy and it affects our ability to serve God.  When we simply trust God and put God first in our lives, then we glorify Him and our joy can return.

An image that keeps running through my mind as I write this is one of Lily when she was learning to walk.  I’m sure every parent and grandparent has done the same thing.  Mom or Dad will sit on the floor and “aim” the kid toward the other parent.  The kid stumbles across the floor and launches herself into her mom or dad’s arms.  If they were not there to catch her, she would definitely land face first on the floor.  And yet she plays the “game” again and again and every time she will look back at the “launching” parent and grin with such pride and joy at her accomplishment.  There isn’t any thought in her head about, “what if they didn’t catch me?”  She simply trusts completely.

How I wish I had that kind of faith and trust.  It is so easy to fall into the worry trap and lose our joy.

My prayer today is for those of us who stumble with our faith and trust.  Instead of expecting the worst, we should be preparing for the best.

Recognizing God's Work in Our Own Work

The Old Testament story of Gideon is one (Judges 6:11-24a) all of us can probably relate to. I love the words of the angel of the Lord to Gideon while he was hard at work grinding wheat one day.  “The Lord is with you, O champion!”  My response would be similar to Gideon’s response.  “What do you mean, “Champion?”  I’m just stuck here at work that never really makes a difference….except to keep me and my family fed.  There must be more to life if I am supposed to be a champion.”  The Lord has done wonderful things for me, surely, but now what?  I’m just not one of the movers and shakers in the world.  But the Lord has an answer to my doubts just as with Gideon’s doubts.  The Lord says, “Go with the strength you have and do what needs to be done, because I am sending you.”  And I like Gideon say, “I don’t have much strength, I’m really pretty insignificant.”  And the Lord says, “I’ll be with you.”  And I say, again like Gideon, “OK, but give me a sign.”  And the Lord does.

There are signs that the Lord is with us.  We will see them if we trust in God.  What is important here is that God is with us, not that we get stronger.  It is about God’s strength and not ours.  We don’t get very far if we ask for strength to go it alone to do what we want to do.  We all know that.  But we are champions if we go with God where God needs us to go.  When we hear what God wants us to do, we read in the Psalms (Psalm 85:9, 11-12, 13-14) that miracles will happen.  We will see the signs.  We will be champions!  Accompanying our faithfulness and hopefulness will be truth and justice, springing out of the earth and down from heaven.  Wow!  It is all there if we look for it.

We can inherit eternal life.  But we can’t do that by ourselves either.  Jesus reminds us that it is impossible on our own; only with God.  Still, I can’t help but think that trusting in God to deliver is only half of the human story.  It is what we want God to deliver that is the problem.  Most of us want something other than what God promises to provide us.  We want earthly riches, power, and recognition of it all more than we want peace and justice and eternal life.  We really think we can enjoy wealth and power more than we can peace and justice.  Jesus understood that.

The other half of the human story is about our desiring to follow Jesus.  But that too is not all up to us….Jesus reminds us that it is impossible for our desires to be made perfect without God. (Matthew 19:23-30). For the sake of the name of Jesus we do our best, but we must rely on God to be with us to stay on track.  So today, and every day, we can stop to pray at work in gratitude for the Lord’s presence.  Just listen for the angel saying, “The Lord is with you, O champion!”  Then we can get our priorities straight and get back to work….God’s work.

A Heaven Sent Comment

Just when I thought my blog wasn’t being as effective as I hope to make it, I got a comment from an old friend and co-worker today:  “I haven’t been here in a while but I remember our talks and still have the Rosary that you gave me.” He signed it “Anonymous”, but I know exactly who it is and I am grateful for the timing of his comment.  He may not realize it, but this simple comment provoked me to a deeper meditation on the Gospel than I’ve had in quite a few weeks with the hope that he will read today’s entry and use that rosary I gave him.  It’s such a powerful prayer!  And it was given to us by our Blessed Mother herself to bring us closer to Jesus Christ through meditations and reflections on His life, death and resurrection.  I'm quite sure the Holy Spirit used this comment (and by extension, my friend) to help me realize I've been getting lazy in my meditations. 

Normally, I would be praying the Joyful mysteries on a Monday night.  But since tomorrow’s gospel is Luke’s account of the Transfiguration (Luke 9: 28b-36), I thought that tonight I’d meditate on the Luminous mysteries….at least on a particular part of the account:

"Jesus took Peter, John, and James and went up a mountain to pray.  While He was praying His face changed in appearance and His clothing became dazzling white."

I can imagine the dazzling white garment.  I can picture Jesus' face transfigured so brilliantly that only a divine power could transform it.  But these aren’t the point of the gospel.   Jesus didn't go up the mountain to put on a show.   Rather, Jesus "went up a mountain to pray."  And furthermore, this fantastic transformation occurred "While he was praying."  Prayer, then, was the matrix for the Transfiguration.  Prayer was the "takeoff" point of this supernatural event.

Every time Jesus prayed, something "ignited."  Not always so dramatically, but always His communication with His Father was powerful, like touching a lit match to gasoline.

When we pray, we too can "ignite" supernatural communication with God.  It needn't be dramatic.  It may not even be verbal, or visible.  It can be as quiet as a thought, as unnoticeable as the blink of an eye.  But does God see us?  Yes!  Does God hear us?  Definitely!  Does God understand our hearts, as well as our words?  Absolutely!  And is it worth it?  Totally!

Whenever I get in a “prayer slump” all I need to do is ask Jesus to help me.  ‘Lord, help me to pray, right now, even if only for a moment.  Lord, You have taught us how to pray in so many ways, with the help of the Holy Spirit, with the words of the "Our Father" with our hearts and our hands, just to name a few.’

We may not "go up a mountain" to pray.  We may not have our clothing turn dazzling white.  We may not even have our facial expressions change.  But prayer always, ALWAYS changes things.

Prayer changes US.  It changes our hearts.  It can change our circumstances, or the way we look at things.  So, Anonymous, don’t just remember that I gave you a rosary.  Pick it up once in a while and remember me in your prayers, won’t you?