Personal Revival

Is God waiting for me?

Seems like a potentially arrogant question. After all, why would the most omnipotent being in all of any history - wait for me to do anything? Isn't it me who should be waiting on God - in prayer, petition, thanksgiving, and hope?

That is all true. And yet I feel that sometimes God does wait for me, for us.

• To forgive even when it feels impossible.
• Embrace a season of quiet with God.
• Let go of what I think my journey thru this life should look like.
• Allow God into my broken places.

A season of quiet with God - what does that look like? How long is that? If we listen for God enough, look for him in all that we see and do, inevitably he will tell us what that season is. 

Thru prayer we will see & hear God. Keeping our eyes wide open all the time - to see & hear him in everything, the sweetest birdsong, the prettiest flower, the hideous weed, the icky insect - is to find God present in our lives every second of the day.

Not every minute. Every single second. Even the words I am writing come straight from God. Because those 4 points above constitute a prayer I have been saying as often as possible, as the gift they are - given to me from a surprising source.

Indeed, that same source gifted me with another prayer, just for me. 

A Personal Revival from God. To acknowledge God's presence, make a plan for healing with only his guidance, and persevere in this plan in the quiet spaces with God.

When you open your mind to all of God's possibilities - even the ones that seem so improbable as to be nearly unbelievable - he delivers gift upon gift.

So go to that quiet place with God - and open your mind & heart to listen to his messages. For he indeed...waiting for us.

God's Smile

Does God smile?

It's an interesting philosophical question. My priest, in his homily last week, talked about God smiling.

At us. His creation. His joy in us when we succeed, when we honor God in prayer and in our lives.

Fr. Mike also suggested that when he was done creating the entire universe - God must have stopped and smiled. 

The thought of God smiling - made me smile. Naturally I thought of things like: the Platypus, a Bumblebee, the Carolina Wren. All of these make me smile...and God must have been tickled with himself when gazing upon the ridiculous cuteness of the Platypus.

And then I thought of other things that are evidence of God's smile - his smile of favor on his world.

Gulfoss Waterfall, Iceland

The breathtaking majesty of a waterfall.

The industry of the aforementioned Bumblebee on a stunning Sunflower.

Or the unparallelled symmetry of a delicate butterfly.

Each of these things comes from the hands of God. Surely he must smile at his ingenuity and beauty. Surely we must smile at his creation.

Which, in the grand circle of life, must make God smile...to see his creation smile.

A Picture

 

How many times do we do this? We pray, we seek God - and totally miss that he is there, all the time, all around us. There is that old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words.

Maybe a flower is worth 10,000 words from God. Because the perfection of a single flower communicates so much about how much God cares for everything he created.

Including us.

For truly - we are never alone.

(image shamelessly stolen from a friend's Facebook page)

Centering

Time...is a thief.

It passes whether we pay attention or not. Time marches on (as the old saying goes) no matter what we may do to slow it down. Or even worse - wish it away faster.

Perhaps the most famous Bible verse on time is the poetic Ecclesiastes Chapter 3:

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, 

a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, 

a time to weep and a time to a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, 

a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, 

a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, 

a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, 

a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.

The lesser-known verse in this chapter is the following:

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

I've mentioned before - God's Time. It encompasses, to me, all that is mysterious and wondrous about God. He has his own pace - did he really take only 7 of our Earth-days to create the heavens and the earth? I doubt it. I often think it may be that he took 7 of our Earth-minutes to do it - because he is God, omnipotent and all-powerful. 

I am believer that all things in the universe are connected in some way. Everything is energy so therefore everything has a common point even at the lowest (shall we say sub-atomic) level. God created it all, infusing his own energy into every plant, beast, rock, the stars, and yes - us.

We are governed by God's time and for us human - who come into this world with our egos fully intact - it's a hard thing to give over. But then again - giving over worries, fears, etc...to God is difficult even on our best days.

Anyway - lately I have felt a little ungrounded. Overwhelmed by the many demands of life these days. And not praying - because I'm so scattered and ungrounded - is clearly taking its toll on me. I am frazzled, confused, and feeling like I'm just drifting along with no guidance.

Yet the ultimate guide - the one who "...set eternity in the human heart..." is just there, not even out of reach. Always by our sides, God is there in the sunlight even on a cloudy day. All you have to do is let yourself go - release the tension, let go of the burdens we insist on toting on our backs every single day - and center yourself on God with a simple prayer.

Nothing fancy needed - just a small, single syllable word...

Help.

That's all. Can't be easier than that, can it? You could add in a couple of other syllables if you need to...

God, please help.

He will hear you even in that original single syllable. As soon as you say it you can feel your shoulders drop a bit. Maybe your jaw relaxes. Perhaps your stomach muscles unclench. 

For me - even my eyebrows settle down.

Help.

So simple. And yet so centering. Because so long as we keep ourselves centered on God, he will do all the rest for us.

It really is all he wants do to.

In Jesus' name,

Amen.

Forcefield Of Love

Ha - not the title you expect from a Christian blog, is it. I can, quite happily, blame one of our Deacons for it. He used this phrase in his homily this past weekend and it just hit me in the right place at the right time.

The beauty and simplicity of this is just breathtaking. The Holy Trinity cast as a protective covering in our lives. Repelling negativity, spiritual warfare, and any other attack with - love.

Pure, unconditional love. Shielding us from all distress.

Flowing in us (God), flowing thru us (Jesus), and flowing over us (Holy Spirit). 

Visualize that - a shelter made of the purest form of anything in the universe. A shelter made of something that can't be seen and can be felt. Whether it's deep inside us, covering us, or floating around us.

A sanctuary cleansed by the blood of Jesus and warmed by the ineffable Holy Spirit.

A forcefield of love. For all time.

Fragility

To be human...is to feel fragile. Our bodies are pretty sturdy, all things considered, and yet we are physically prone to bruising, cuts, falling, injuries, illness, etc...

We aren't meant to last forever. 

What I mean by using the word "fragility" as the title of this conversation is our emotional fragility. For in that we are prone to tears, anger, betrayal, depression, etc...

Nothing really much good in that kind of fragility, is there. It wears us down and wears us out. Only if we allow ourselves to become lost in the sea of our human frailty.

For indeed, God is most definitely not fragile. Not in any sense of the word. By any definition God is the strongest being of all time and space. His creation endures - it might change and it still endures.

Like the epic waterfall in this picture. Gullfoss (meaning golden waterfall) in Iceland. Millions of years old its torrents gush unimpeded through this harsh & beautiful landscape. While the water, over time, may change the face of the rocks the flow of the water is a constant. 

As is God - he is there for us, even when we don't acknowledge him. Or talk to him. 

We go thru each day not being fully aware of God's constant presence in our lives. Or at least - I do.

I am utterly clueless sometimes in the stress & tumble of a day. Something can be staring me in the face and if I'm wrapped up in my own little dramas and concerns I don't see it.

And that doesn't mean that God isn't there anyway. Even when he is ignored or worse - yelled at in anger about some petty thing - he is there. Steadfast. 

Waiting for us - always waiting for us. And all we need to do is say "Hi God" or "Thank you God" or even just "God, please help me".

Because we may be fragile - but he never is.

The End Is Just The Beginning

It's been a challenging couple of weeks. Lots of doubting on my part - that God even sees what is happening to the world he created. That he sees what is happening to people I love. That he sees - me.

And of course that is my human-ness being allowed free reign over my thoughts. Because God is always there - and every challenge, every heartache, every frustration - is our opportunity to draw him into our innermost soul & heart. To that magical in-dwelling that he craves for us & with us.

Funny thing - He is already there. And in our human-ness - our ego - we believe that it is WE who need to allow him in.

Humans really are curious creatures.

It is not up to us to decide much about our lives. Sure, our daily decisions on what to wear, what food to eat, where to be and when - the normal activities that require our participation.

But in the grand scheme of our brief existence, no matter what we want to believe or force to happen, it is God - and only God - who runs the show.

Even more importantly - it is our responsibility to turn to him in those moments that try us. Those moments that give us the greatest struggles. And those moments happen because we don't acknowledge that God is already there.

Or as is said at every Catholic Mass:

"Through him, with him, in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, almighty Father, for ever and ever." The Book of Romans, Chapter 11:36

And to the image I posted here - this is all intended for one specific person in my life who needs to hear this:

We are not in control. Only God is. And the bad things that happen to us can be a gateway to all the good & wonderful things that God has planned for us. We only need to get out of our own way, let go of what we think things should be like, and be more open to the signs & wonders that God sends to us every moment. Because God wants the very best for us - signs & wonders are not about the end. They are about our beginning...no matter at what point we start. -with love, kris

While it might feel like the end - perhaps it is God's way of saying there is newness of life waiting for you. Just be patient because it's all in God's Time.

"We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life." The Book of Romans, Chapter 6:4

Amen.